All humans began
in one place and spread throughout the world, carrying the culture
(gods, stories) with them.

If two separate
peoples have the same gods and/or stories, there must have been contact
in which the more sophisticated group gave the ideas to the more primitive
group.

Parallelism
[Karl Jung (diametrically opposed to ritualism)]:

Mythology/religion
evolved out of the popularity of evolutionary thought.

Human beings
react similarly to similar stimuli because they are human -- they
are genetically patterned to react that way.

The passing
on of acquired traits: after a long time of reacting a certain way,
humans pass on (draw from the collective unconscious) the reaction
because they are human. Therefore, gods and stories develop because
the reactivity is a part of the collective unconscious.

Ritualist School
(Frazier):

to understand
a mythological story you must understand the ritual behind it

Structuralist
School:

must know the
entire body of mythology to properly understand individual myths

Psychological
School (Freud):

psychoanalyze
gods and other mythological characters

Diffusionist
School:

humanity began
in one place and dispersed itself and its stories throughout the world

if two totally
disparate cultures have the same motifs or gods, they must have been
in contact at some point

Parallelist
School (Carl Jung):

different groups
have the same gods and motifs just because they are human -- ideas
are passed on genetically through the collective unconscious

There is usually
a top echelon of named gods with specific roles and characteristics
as well as an army of unnamed gods. Each of the top gods ordinarily
has an epithet.

The Ancient Near
East consists of the geographical area from the Indus Valley to the
Mediterranean, plus Egypt and Greece. These are the myths of the Sumerians,
Babylonians, Canaanites, Egyptians, Hebrews, Persians, Christians, and
Greeks.

The Sumerian language may
be a sister language to an Indo-European language.
The Sumerians came up through the Persian Gulf. No one knows where they
came from. They were "light-haired" (i.e., their hair
was not jet black like everyone else in the region), "light-eyed"
(i.e., not black-brown), "light-skinned" (i.e.,
olive) [They were, in other words, not an Aryan people.], hairy, short,
and squatty. They invented the wheel, writing (c. 3400 B.C. they invented
a stylus to write in cuneiform -- wedge-writing). All cultures of the
ancient Near East used cuneiform. The Sumerians came from a mountainous
countryside. They created ziggurats (step-pyramids) and used them to
worship on. They made illustrated books for their myths and legends.
They carved cylinder seals out of stone to roll imprints on wet clay.
Sumerian priests shaved their entire bodies bald. Other men had huge
beards and long wavy hair, thick eyebrows, and enormous eyes (as depicted
in the artwork of the time). The eyes of statues were made of shell
for the white and lapis lazuli for the iris [Possible explanation: Conquerors
never want to merge with the conquered so they accentuate the differences
between them in often exaggerated detail.]. The Akkadians were heavily
influenced by the Sumerians -> Babylonians worshipped similar gods.

From Nammu, came
a mountian of dry land: Anki, the "Cosmic Mountain,"
represented by the ziggurat. From the Cosmic Mountain came Enlil,
(Lord of the Wind) God of Air, son of Anki who is both male ("An"
the sky) and female ("Ki" the earth). ("An" is "Anu"
in Babylonian myth). Ki -> Ninhursag (another name
for Ki).

An
("Anu") is the sky god, thought of as being a god, but as
the sky he is a solid dome made of lapis lazuli. Since he emerged from
chaos, An represents the principle of order. He becomes king of the
gods. (Typically the high priest representing a god is also the king
of that god's city. If two cities fought, it was believed that the two
gods of those cities were also fighting each other.) "An"
is a word which represents kingship -- order through unquestioned obedience
to An and his high priest. An is thought of as a busy older man, king
of the universe.

As for Ki, Enlil
returns home one day and rapes her (his mother). This union yields all
living things on earth. Ki is then called the "Mother of All Living
Things." An and Ki are parents of the gods.

Enlil is the god
of air. By separating An and Ki (through the rape of his mother), he
holds them apart forever (a common archetype). He is a very powerful
god and the second in command. He is characteristically unpredictable
like the wind. He is a god of wisdom. He gave humanity a gift: a pickaxe.
This is the symbol for agriculture (taught by Enlil). The pick side
symbolizes (phallic) the rape of the virgin soil, thus the rape of Ki.
Enlil eventually evolves into a god who seems to slowly replace An as
king of the gods because An has become too busy with keeping the universe
in balance. People begin eventually to pray to Enlil.

Enki,
("Ea") "Lord of the Soil", God of Water. He is a
trickster, a prankster, a liar. He loves to win. He is totally unpredictable.
He is very clever. He has an advantage: he is the only god who knows
magic in addition to his deified powers. This allows him to win virtually
every time. But no one ever goes to him first. He is usually the third
god approached. He gives to humanity the knowledge of writing (cuneiform).
Written and spoken language are both closely associated with magic.
Enki's tricks always catch up with him. His magic doesn't keep him out
of trouble. Enki lives in the Abzu (the Abyss -- the bottom of
the Euphrates). Enki is also associated with law. Trials were often
performed as trials by ordeal. The accused would be thrown into the
Euphrates to let Enki decide his innocence or guilt. If Enki kept him
(drowning), he was guilty and considered justly punished. If Enki threw
him back (survival), he must be innocent. Many men were acquitted this
way. Later on, they began tying people up first before sugjecting them
to this trial. Enki has a thunderbird, called Imdugud. Imdugud
is considered to be the South Wind. It carries the rain on its back.
It has the body of a bird and the head of a lion (to explain the roar
of thunder). Enki is a patron god of artisans. (The only real raw material
that existed for the Sumerians was clay. Water is needed to work with
the soil and make clay. This is why Enki was known as the Lord of the
Soil. The words En and Ki literally mean "Lord of the Soil.")
Enki is represented with rays coming off him directed downward, symbolizing
water, with fish swimming in the rays.

En = "Lord
of"

Nin = "Lady
of" (usually; it is sometimes a masculine name as well)

Nanna
("Sin") is the God of the Moon. Nanna is an extremely powerful
god who came from An and Ki. The moon is often portrayed as feminine,
but Nanna is male. He taught the seasonal planting and harvesting, the
lunar month (calendar), tides, astrology (also including astronomy).

The Children
of Nanna

Utu
("Shamash"), the God of the Sun (a reversal of the common
archetype in which the sun is considered the superior figure). The word
"shamash" means "sun." (A "shamash" candle
lights the menorah.) Utu is the Judge of the Gods. He is immensely wise
and inescapable (because the sun is always watching). He is tremendously
powerful. (Shamash is depicted giving Hammurabi the Code of Law). He
is depicted as an ordinary Sumerian man, with rays coming off him, and
holding either a comb (to separate the truth from the lie) or a saw
(to cut through to the truth).

Kur,
the Underworld. "Kur" can mean three things:

"the Underworld"

"the land
of the dead personified"

"a river
of dead stagnant water that flows through the Underworld"

Nergal,
God of the Underworld. A very powerful but not very popular god. (Death
and the gods related to it are not usually considered to be evil, but
they are not popular.) Nergal abducts a consort from the living world
(because no one likes him enough to come willingly). Her name is Ereshkigal.
She becomes queen of the Underworld and pushes Nergal out of the picture.
No one can come from outside the Underworld and force her in any way
(a typical archetype). She is not an evil goddess; she is just unpopular.
Ereshkigal cannot be fooled. She has a gatekeeper (a position of tremendous
honor) called Neti. Along one side of Ereshkigal's throne room
sit seven judges called the Anunaki. They are called the "Seven
Judges of the Underworld." When lightning seems to come up from
the ground, it is said that the Anunaki are raising their torches.

Ninurta,
Lord of the Plow. He is the Storm God, "Lord of the South Wind."
He is thought of like Imdugud. He is also a God of War, but atypically
he PREVENTS war, like a peace officer. He is the son of An and Ki and
is very dear to his mother. He is the patron god of farmers and herdsmen.
His herds are the clouds.

Inanna,
daughter of Nanna. She is also called (in Babylonian) "Ishtar."
She is the goddess of fertility (in humans), of lust, and of love. She
is the goddess of hate, war, and slaughter. Love between a man and a
woman was considered to be a form of insanity (passion). This kind of
love leads to irrational behavior. Passion is a driving emotion which
cannot be overcome. To be struck by this goddess meant complete insanity.
Therefore, one shouldn't make any serious decisions in this state of
mind (e.g., marriage). There was therefore ample provision for
divorce in Sumerian society, because it was understodd that the insanity
would eventually pass. Inanna shoots barbed arrows. If one of the spouses
does not wish to be divorced, it was justifiable to effect the divorce
"Italian Style" (murder); this was considered a crime of passion.
The passionate insanity of love was considered an acceptable defense
for murder. Hate is equally passionate and powerful (e.g., Euripides's
"Medea": "Love is diseased."). The worst thing that
can happen to a man is to be noticed by Inanna who will immediately
want to have an affair with him, after which she will kill him. If he
refuses her, she will kill him anyway. She is irresistibly beautiful
and totally self-centered. She always holds a grudge and never forgives.
Men were always positive that women were scheming to get them and that
they used magical charms to do it. (In Celtic folklore, women were said
to have "cast a glamour" meaning that
a woman's beauty is an illusion.) [One of the three major revolutions
of civilization was the medieval advent of courtly
love, when the woman became an object of adoration.]

Dumuzi
is the God of Fertility in Animals. Dumuzi is brash, impetuous,
and he never stops talking. He is very egocentric. He eventually marries
Inanna.

Enkimdu
is the God of Fertility in Vegetation. Enkimdu is rather shy, modest,
unassuming.

The world was in
the grips of a terrible draught. Ninurta resolves
to go find Asag, face him in battle, and destroy
him. He knows Asag wis hiding in Kur. Ninurta sets
out to find him. Suddenly, he comes face to face with him and then turns
and flees in terror. Later, Ninurta returns to face Asag in battle (this
differentiates bravery and courage) and kills him. Kur reacts in horror.
The Underworld water floods to the surface of the earth -- dead stagnant
water that would kill everything. Ninurta is worried because he knows
it's his fault. He begins to throw boulders into the fault out of which
the water springs forth. He manages to build a mountain which stops
the waters. The mountain is called Hursag. Ki,
Ninurta's mother, sees his accomplishment and is terribly proud. As
a reward, she comes down to give him her blessing. He is flattered.
To return her favor, he bestows upon her an honorary name, Ninhursag,
the Lady of the Mountain.

Ninhursag's
Garden

Ninhursag
is kind of a loner, although most gods tend to be noisy and boisterous.
At one point the heat was becoming unbearable, so Ninhursag decides
to plant a garden, intending to make a place she could go to for solitude
and shelter from the heat. She goes to a very barren plain called Edinu.
She asks Utu to help her. She asks that,
as he goes through the Underworld during the night, he should break
open the ground and let fresh water come forth. He does this. She plants
eight plants, nurturing and tending to them. Eventually there is a huge
garden which is very cool and moist.

One day, An
summons her to visit. She is worried that wild animals will come and
destroy her garden. But Enki comes by with his
prime minister Isimud. Ninhursag asks them to guard her garden
in her absence, and they agree. She leaves. Later, Enki begins to get
hungry. Isimud says that he should eat the fruit of the garden, but
Enki declines. Isimud encourages him further. Eventually, Enki eats
the entire garden -- down to the ground. Everything is gone. They leave.

When Ninhursag
returns, she's furious. She utters eight curses (for the eight plants),
each striking a different part of the body of the culprit. Enki begins
to die. His magic can't cure him. The gods are unable to help him. He
realizes that he must confess. The gods bring him to Ninhursag and she
forgives him (gods don't hold grudges). She has to create eight minor
goddesses to cure each of the curses. [Pun is a very popular literary
device throughout history - each of the 8 goddesses has a name which
is a pun: Ninti, is the Lady of Life (who gives life) while her
name also means Lady of the Rib (the part of Enki which she cures).
Christian parallels: Examine the name of the garden. Edinu -> Eden.
The taboo of eating the fruit of the garden which results in punishment.
Eve is referred to as the "mother of living things." Parallel
of the rib.]

Enki
lives in the Abzu. At one point, he feels that he
should have a palace temple (city) for himself. He builds Eridu
in the depths of the Abzu. It floats to the surface and he attaches
it to the shore. Then he begins to worry because he hasn't gotten An's
permission and blessing. He travels to An's city, Uruk ("Erech").
He has a great feast with much wine and beer. Enki asks An if he might
build a city and if An would bless it. An grants permission and gives
Enki the Seven Tablets of Law or Civilization as a blessing.
Enki takes them back to his city, making his city the most important
city in Mesopotamia.

Later, Inanna,
who shares Uruk with An, decides that she should have the greatest city
and resolves to wrest the power away from Enki. She takes her prime
minister Ninshubur and they sail down the Euphrates. When they
arrive at Eridu, they surprise Enki. He asks them why they've come.
Inanna expresses concern for him. Enki, foolishly, is flattered. He
lays out a great feast in her honor. Enki drinks a lot and then says
that if there is anything he can do for Inanna, she need only ask. Inanna
asks to "borrow" the Seven Tablets, to which Enki agrees.
She and Ninshubur take them and leave immediately. As Enki sobers, he
realizes he has been duped and sends Isimud after Inanna in another
boat. He catches them and asks for the tablets back. They refuse. He
conjures up monsters, but the two are oblivious. They arrive in Uruk
and keep the tablets.

Eridu and Uruk
are real cities of the ancient world < 3,000 B.C. Eridu was the greatest.
Power shifted to Uruk at some point. These stories are a political allegory
to explain this transfer of power.

The
Wooing of Inanna or The Courting of Inanna

Dumuzi
and Enkimdu were courting Inanna.
The courtships lead to a debate. Utu, Inanna's
brother, favors Dumuzi for Inanna because of his brashness. But Inanna
favors Enkimdu because of his certain controllability. Dumuzi leaps
up and begins boasting of his greatness. He is very persuasive and charismatic.
His attempts are so convincing that Enkimdu then gets up and says, "You
know, he's the one you should marry," and he leaves. Inanna takes
Dumuzi to be her consort. Dumuzi later assumes Enkimdu's role as well,
placing the control of all fertility between Dumuzi and Inanna.

Inanna
is ruling in Uruk. One day, she decides she
ought to be ruling over a much greater realm. She decides to go to the
Underworld and take it from Ereshkigal and
add it to her realm. She has an idea. She dresses herself up in all
of her greatest finery. She is unbelievably beautiful. She plans to
stun everyone into submission. Ninshubur is
worried about this plot. Inanna tells Ninshubur that if she does not
return in 3 days, he should get help and rescue her.

Inanna goes to
Ereshkigal's gate, pounding imperiously. The gate slowly opens and Neti
is there, looking a little confused. He sees Inanna and asks what she
wants. She is caught off guard. Remembering her success in Eridu,
she doesn't expect to be challenged. She says that she is very concerned
for Ereshkigal. Neti is not deceived. He says, "Wait here, I'll
ask my mistress," and closes the gate in her face. He reports to
Ereshkigal, who is not pleased but decides to give Inanna a chance to
tell the truth. Inanna is brought in "in the usual way." Neti
opens the gate, and Inanna enters. Neti removes her tiara saying it
is the law. She goes through 6 more gates and finally enters the throne
room completely naked. Ereshkigal asks why she has come. Inanna holds
to her lie. Ereshkigal becomes very angry. She nods to the Anunaki
and they turn the eyes of death upon Inanna, turning her into a corpse.
A servant comes and takes her body and hangs it up on a meathook on
the wall.

Meanwhile, Ninshubur
is frantic. He goes to An for help. An says that
he would like to help but he cannot command Ereshkigal. Ninshubur goes
to Enlil, who says the same thing. He then goes
to Enki, who says he'll think of something. He comes up with a fascinating
plot:

First, Enki creates
two sexless beings out of the dirt from under his fingernails. He gives
them instructions and sends them on their way. They go to the Underworld,
carrying with them the Water of Life. Neti opens the gate and asks what
they want. They say they are ambassadors of Enki with a message for
Ereshkigal. He brings them in. Ereshkigal tells Neti to give them whatever
they want and then bring them before her. They bathe, eat, and rest,
then go to Ereshkigal. They say that she must release Inanna. She asks
why. They say if she does not, they will hold her to the Universal
Laws (a prominent archetype). One of the laws is the Law
of the Host and Guest -- the guest must arrive home as safely as
they arrived at the host's door. Another law: Anyone who eats and/or
drinks in the Underworld may never leave (a worldwide archetype). Ereshkigal
can not obey both laws unless she releases Inanna which she ends up
doing. The sexless beings sprinkle the Water of Life on Inanna's body
and she comes to life.

Ereshkigal is not
happy. She wants more than the two sexless beings, which are meaningless
and expendable. She makes a demand: Inanna is to choose a real being
to come down and take her place. She agrees. Ereshkigal sends two creatures
with Inanna (they are sometimes called the Hounds of Hell --
they have long claws & fingers to drag their victims to the Underworld).
They arrive in Uruk and Ninshubur come out to greet them. His robes
are torn, his face tearstreaked. He is overjoyed to see Inanna. The
Hounds want to take him, but Inanna refuses. Dumuzi
comes out wearing his finest robes, assumedly in honor of Inanna's return.
She says she is pleased to see how anxious he has been for her return.
Dumuzi replies, "Oh, were you gone?" She gives him to the
Hounds of Hell. The world turns brown because the God of Animal &
Vegetable Fertility is gone. The gods get together and agree that they
must get Dumuzi back. They plead with Ereshkigal, but she has fallen
in love with him and doesn't want to give him up. She makes a deal to
give him back every other six months, thus explaining the portion of
the year when the world is fertile.

The Babylonians
further developed the concept of the demon called
the utukku. Sumerian equivalents are shown in parentheses.

The Utukku

Edimmu.
A being that comes into existence when someone who has died isn't given
the proper funeral feast. He harangues the person who was supposed to
give the funeral feast -> ("haunt"). The only way to appease
him is to carry out the funeral feast properly.

Shedu.
Everyone has a guardian shedu. A pair guard each temple doorway. They
are invisible, 35 feet tall with the body of a bull, the head of a man,
and gigantic wings. The plural of shedu is shedubim (like "cherubim").

Arallu.
They spread crime, disease, war, and family disunity. They will even
attack the gods -- especially Sin (Nanna),
the moon god. They ambush him, stuff him in a sack and he has to fight
his way out (a lunar eclipse). They are all male, so they can't reproduce.
They are immortal. Originally, they issued from the bile of Ea
(Enki), from the stagnant water under the Kur.
They have the body of a man, the head of a lion, lion's paws, huge wings,
and small goat horns. The Assyrian name is Pazuzu. He does possess
bodies (i.e., demonic possession) and must be exorcised. He is
considered very powerful. (Modern film reference: "Exorcist II:
The Heretic")

The
Babylonian Creation Story

Apsu and
Tiamat were in the beginning and nothing else. Apsu, the
male proto-god, is the fresh water (Apsu, the
inanimate = Abzu). Tiamat, Apsu's consort,
is the great chaotic primeval ocean and the dragon, great maternal mother
goddess. They give birth to the pantheon of
gods and to Muumuu, who is mist, water vapor, fog (a very weak
proto-god). Muumuu hangs around the Apsu all the time as a counselor.

There's nothing
for them to do because there is nothing, so the gods party all the time,
making so much noise that Tiamat and Apsu cannot sleep. Apsu becomes
irritated and wants to kill all the gods. Muumuu encourages him. He
goes to Tiamat and tells her what he wants to do. She says, "These
are my children. I'm not going to help you kill them. You're just going
to have to do it yourself." Apsu sends word to the other gods that
he is going to kill them. They are terrified and decide that Anu
(An), the oldest and greatest, must go forth.
He takes one look at Apsu and flees. Enlil is next.
It is then Ea's turn. He brings a large coil
of rope with him. The moment he catches sight of Apsu, he throws the
rope around him and ties him up tight and kills him. He then kills Muumuu.
Ea then becomes the god of all fresh waters.

Tiamat is furious.
She decides to go and kill them herself. First, she creates an army
of demons. One, Kingu, is larger than the rest. He is her new
consort. She sends word to the gods. Now they are truly terrified. No
one will face her. Ea's son Marduk steps up, a vigorous young
warrior, and says he will go face Tiamat. They all burst out laughing
in derision. His idea is that if each of the gods gives him all their
power, he will be strong enough to face Tiamat. They consent. They bestow
their powers on him (without losing them).

Marduk goes out
in a storm chariot pulled by storm horses. He has a bow and arrow (lightning
bolts), a huge net, and two giant sacks tied at the mouth. In one are
the four directional winds. In the other sack are the seven evil winds.
Tiamat sees him coming. She laughs and opens her mouth to devour him.
He opens the sack with the seven evil winds, which rush straight into
her mouth and blow her up like a balloon. He throws the net over her
and releases the other sack. Each of the four directional winds takes
a corner of the net so she can't float away. Then he shoots arrows down
her throat into her heart and kills her. He kills Kingu and the rest
of the demons easily.

Out of Tiamat's
carcass, Marduk slits her in half lengthwise and creates the universe
(a common archetype). Her skull is the
solid dome of the sky. Her blood is the ocean. Her bones are stones
and her hair vegetation. He wants someone to look after the universe
for him. He notices a small pool of Kingu's blood from which he creates
human beings. He goes back to the gods who complement him and ask for
their powers back. He decides to keep the powers and be their king.
They all consent. Marduk has 50 names.

The Enuma Elish
("When above . . .") is a poem found on seven tablets.

Allegories:
a way to tame the waters; political -- each of the various semitic states
had an army. After some time, all the city-states yielded their power
to Hammurabi, King of Babylon, who then conquered Sumeria and then refused
to surrender their autonomy. (Marduk = God of Babylon)

Adapa
and Anu

Adapa is
the prime minister of Ea, who favors him so much
that he has taught him all of his secrets. One day, Adapa is fishing
in a boat on the Euphrates. He has just hooked the biggest fish he's
ever seen when a sudden squall capsizes his boat. He loses the fish
and utters a curse, breaking the wing of the South Wind. When Anu
hears of this, he wants to meet him. Adapa is terrified and prays to
Ea for guidance. Ea tells him what to do and then says, "But remember,
you mustn't accept any food or drink from Anu because it is the Food
of Death." Adapa tears his robe and spreads ashes over himself
and then goes to Anu, clearly in mourning. There he meets Tammuz
(Dumuzi) and Ningizsida, a god of fertility,who
died. He is a snake with a human head.

When Adapa arrives,
he is questioned. They ask why he is mourning. He says it is because
two of the great gods have died. They are flattered and put in a good
word for him with Anu. Anu then questions him, and then offers him food
and drink. Adapa refuses. Anu is surprised and sends away the food and
then laughs saying that he has just refused the Food of Immortality.
He gives him a new robe. The robe is to remind everyone that priests
get special treatment. The robe is symbolic of the expectation placed
on the recipient of the robe. Archetype: The
Lying Messenger

In Assyria,
King Ashurbanipal (Ashur was the main god; the land was
cald Ashuria.) lived in Nineveh. He was a great patron
of the arts but was also one of the cruelest of the Assyrian kings.
He wanted to build a library so he sent men out to gather literature.
The Rescension, or the Nineveh Rescension, refers to the
translation and editing of this literature. All the myths come from
this, as does the story of Gilgamesh, King of Uruk.
It is a story written on twelve tablets called "Gilgamesh in
the Land of the Living," an epic. The story consists of Sumerian
episodes put together by a Babylonian editor. This, not Homer, is the
first epic. It was found in Nineveh in four different languages: Sumerian,
Assyrian, Babylonian, and Hittite (from Anatolia). It was completely
written in poetry.

Gilgamesh
in the Land of the Living

Gilgamesh was two
thirds god and one third man (i.e., two of his parents were gods
and one was human). He was notorious for being a cruel tyrant because
of his superiority. He took anything he wanted.

At one point, the
people are desperate so they go over Gilgamesh's head, praying directly
to the gods for help. The gods hear them. One of the goddesses takes
some earth and creates Enkidu, a wild man. He is stronger than
a lion, faster than a gazelle, and friends with the animals. He has
long hair and beard. He is naked and eats only grass. He drinks only
water from the ditches or milk from female animals. A notice comes to
the city elders that this wild man keeps rescuing the wild animals they
have captured. The elders perceive Enkidu to be the answer to their
prayers. They set out to capture him and bring him back. They select
a temple prostitute. She meets a hunter and sets out after Enkidu. The
hunter says, "There he is. Bare yourself to him and seduce him."
So she opens her robe and they have a wild sexual union for seven days
and seven nights. Enkidu then goes to run with the animals but finds
himself "strangely weak." He is contaminated by the civilized
and the animals reject him. He has no choice but to join civilization.
The prostitute and the hunter cut and curl his hair. They wash him and
anoint him with oil. They put a robe on him. (Both the anointment and
the robe symbolize selection for a task.) They give him bread and beer
(both synthetic). They go to Uruk.

Enkidu and Gilgamesh
grapple (wrestle). Enkidu goes down on one knee. He has lost. But Gilgamesh
takes him to be his comrade because he has finally found a peer. They
become lifelong comrades. Enkidu considers himself a lesser person,
so he always goes before Gilgamesh. They decide to travel to the Cedar
Forest (Lebanon) which is guarded by a giant, called Humbaba
(in Assyrian, Huwawa). Gilgamesh is presented with a beautiful
bronze axe and sword by the elders. The Cedar Forest was placed there
by Enlil, now head of the gods, and Humbaba was made to guard the forest.
Enkidu pushes the gate of the forest with his hand and immediately his
right side becomes paralyzed. They meet Humbaba, have a great fight,
and win. Humbaba pleads for his life. Gilgamesh agrees to spare him.
But Enkidu insists they kill him so Gilgamesh decapitates him with his
great axe. They return to Uruk, exalting in their victory.

Gilgamesh looks
incredibly god-like. He is so magnificent that Inanna
notices him and becomes interested. She appears before him and suggests
a liaison. He refuses, remembering Dumuzi's
fate. Enkidu laughs. Inanna goes stomping back to Enlil
and demands that he kill them both. Because they just killed his giant,
he allows Inanna to send the Great Bull of Heaven after them.
He comes charging out of heaven killing one hundred men with his first
snort, two hundred with his second, etc. The people see him coming.
Gilgamesh is pleased about the impending fight. Enkidu takes no weapon
but stands in front of Gilgamesh. The second the bull gets to him he
leaps up and does a handspring off the bull's back. The bull turns to
see what has happened and Gilgamesh plunges his sword into the bull's
breast (the Minoans of Crete did this same kind of bull jumping as a
sport). Gilgamesh takes the prime cut (the right rear thigh) of the
bull to place it on Enlil's altar, thinking Enlil is angry about Humbaba's
death. Just then Inanna appears. Seeing Enkidu holding the meat, she
says she accepts his offering. So Enkidu either throws the cut onto
her altar with a sneer or throws the bull's genitals onto her altar
(depending on the telling). She is furious. She goes to Enlil demanding
their death. Enlil declines. Inanna says Enkidu at least must die. And
Enlil can't think of a reason why not. So Enkidu falls ill and dies
in three days. Gilgamesh mourns. He begins contemplating that if Enkidu
was his equal and he died -- could he die as well? This worries him
considerably. So he promises the spirirt of Enkidu that he will wear
a lion skin on his back, until it falls off him, in Enkidu's honor.
He also promises to travel to the Land of the Living where the
immortal man and his wife live. The immortal man is Ziusiudra
in Sumerian and Utnapishtim in Babylonian.

Everywhere Gilgamesh
goes, people ask him for his story. He eventually meets a barmaid and
he asks her where the ferry to the Land of the Living is. She tells
him. But the ferryman Urshanabi isn't there. Gilgamesh finds
some stones in the boat and smashes the stones on the ground in anger.
But Urshanabi then appears and says that these stones would have powered
the boat. So they have to cut saplings to pull themselves across. Once
across, first thing, Utnapishtim fires Urshanabi in anger. Gilgamesh
tells Utnapishtim that he wants to live forever. Utnapishtim says he
couldn't even stay awake for seven days let alone live forever. Gilgamesh
says, "I can, too." So he sits down and immediately sleeps
for seven days (Utnapishtim's wife places a fresh loaf of bread beside
him each day, marking the time.) So Gilgamesh agrees that he cannot
live forever.

But Utnapishtim
tells Gilgamesh where to find the herb of eternal youth, a plant with
thorns and beautiful flower at the bottom of the sea. So Gilgamesh ties
large rocks to the bottoms of his feet, sinks to the bottom, gets the
herb, and then cuts the ropes and floats back up (the origins of deep
sea diving). Urshanabi and Gilgamesh travel together. They get to a
cool pool of water. Gilgamesh puts down the herb of eternal youth so
he can bathe. A snake comes out of the water, swallows the herb, and
goes back into the water, thus explaining why snakes become young again
and again. Gilgamesh has learned humility. He becomes the greatest king
ever known.

Utnapishtim tells
Gilgamesh the story of how he became immortal. It parallels the story
of Noah's ark.

c. 3000 - 2000
B.C. People moved into the Levant (the eastern end of the Mediterranean
boundaried by mountains). They were the Canaanites. They were the best
merchants of the ancient world. Clothing at this time was always very
drab. People used vegetable dyes which are not very vivid. The Canaanites
developed a dye that was vivid and colorfast from the murex shell/animal
which made a very vivid maroon color that wouldn't fade. One drop of
the dye could be extracted from each murex. Only the wealthy could afford
this luxury -- only nobility. In Greece, all the young nobles wanted
it (Royal Purple). The Greeks went to the Canaanites and called them
the Phoenicians (Phoenix -> Purple). They were great navigators,
sailors, mariners -- the greatest in the world. They were not a bellicose
people. They were merchants. But they had pretty good land, several
cities (Tyre, Sidon, Byblos -- port cities).

c. 1250 - 1200
B.C. Other people began moving: Aramaans, Hebrews, the Philistines (Philistine
is now Palestine). The Canaanites colonized. They discovered the Atlantic
Ocean. They colonized most of the Mediterranean except for the Aegean.
They traded with the Azores (halfway across the Atlantic). They may
have had tin mines in Cornwall. They found Carthage and settled it c.
800 B.C., controlling all of the Mediterranean. They circumnavigated
Africa in 500 B.C. They were the first great sharp traders. They invented
their own form of writing. (1) syllabary (like kanji - Japanese characer
text) (2) the first alphabet with 22 letters and no vowels -- the basis
for virtually every alphabet in the modern world. The Greeks added vowels.

Gods
of Canaan

El,
king of the gods (El means "God" - the plural is Elohim),
a fertility god, represented by a bull or by a man wearing a helmet
with bull horns. An elderly man with a mustache and goatee. He lives
on a place called Har Mo'ed (the apostrophe represents a glottal
stop, it used to be represented by "h" in English), "the
mount of assembly", or "the mount of the North." The
Hebrews called this "the place of the last battle" or Armageddon.

Dagon,
fertility god, rain/water god, grain god. He is portayed with a sheaf
of grain for hair and the body of a fish from the waist down (a merman).
He doesn't appear in Canaanite mythology because he was adopted by the
Philistines (in Biblical history, Samson destroyed
the Temple of Dagon). Dagon is probably El's brother. His son holds
a position which is traditionally that of the king's nephew.

Baal
(son of Dagon) is a young, impetuous fertility god. He is portrayed
as a man with bull horns on his helmet or as a calf -- sometimes a golden
calf. He is also a storm god. His major epithet
is "He Who Mounts the Clouds." The clouds are called "the
heavenly herd of cows." He is often the butt of jokes. "Baal"
= "lord." He is called "Lord Prince" or "Baal
Zebul" (-> Beelzebub, Hebrew for "Lord of the
Insects" -> "Lord of the Flies").

Kothar,
artisan of the gods, smith of the gods (a widespread archetype).
He can make anything.

Yamm
(also Lotan), the great primeval chaotic ocean. He is male, a
very old dragon with seven heads (like the Greeks' Hydra). A
dragon with many heads as god of the ocean, with seven heads especially
-- this image is perhaps inspired by the giant octopus.

Mot
moves freely from the upper world to the Underworld. When in the
upper world, he is sterility and usually lives in the desert. In the
Underworld he is death. He is not a very popular god, but he is not
evil.

Shapash
(from Shamash), goddess of the sun. Epithet:
"the Torch of the Gods."

Asherah is
the consort of El and is called "Mother of the
70 Gods" (i.e., all of them). She is El's best friend and
loving consort AND his bitterest enemy. She is the goddess of love and
hate, the mother goddess. She is shown as standing between two goats
up on their hind legs. She holds a sheaf of grain in each hand, feeding
them (they are sometimes gazelles). She is eventually shown as the Tree
of Life, with goats eating of her fruit.

Anat is
Baal's consort and sister. Her real interest is
destroying things. She is the goddess of war and slaughter. She is depicted
with a sword in each hand with a big smile on her face. Human arms,
heads, and legs are flying through the air all around her.

Ashtoreth
is unbelievably beautiful (like Inanna).
She is not anyone's consort. She is the goddess of love. She likes being
single. She is associated with the moon and with the oceans. The crescent
moon is her symbol -- she wears it in her hair. The Greeks referred
to her as Astarte, a moon goddess. All three are inspired by
Inanna/Ishtar. The Greeks had Hera (As[hera]h), Athena
(from Anat), Aphrodite (from Ashtoreth). The Egyptians made Isis
from Asherah and Hathor from Anat/Ashtoreth.

I. Baal
Defeats Yamm

The world has just
been created. No one is yet ruling. Two gods want to: Baal
and Yamm. They go to El
to ask for his judgment and wisdom. El chooses Yamm to be the first
King of Earth. Yamm builds himself a palace and has a wonderful time.
Eventually, he begins to get very arrogant. He sends messengers to Har
Mo'ed to tell the gods he demands tribute. The gods are uneasy;
Baal is furious. Ashtoreth says she can solve
the problem.

She dresses up
in her greatest finery and goes to talk Yamm out of his foolishness.
She struts back and forth on the shore in front of the ocean to lure
Yamm out. He doesn't come. She begins to undress (a strip tease) until
eventually he comes out. He dispatches his messengers immediately saying
he demands tribute AND Ashtoreth as his consort. Baal leaps up and drives
the messengers out of Har Mo'ed, kicking their backsides as they go,
saying he will destroy Yamm. The other gods praise his courage, given
Yamm's greater size and strength. Baal worries. He goes to Kothar
and asks him for weapons that will make him equal to Yamm. Kothar makes
two weapons (axes or hammers) which, when thrown, will go straight to
their mark and then return to Baal's hand (thunderbolts). He goes to
Earth armed and stands on the seashore screaming insults until Yamm
is furious and comes slithering up out of the ocean. Baal throws the
first hammer, hits Yamm between the eyes, and knocks him out cold. Baal
goes up to Yamm to kill him. Anat appears and says
it will give him no glory to kill an unconscious victim. So Baal kicks
him back into the ocean, throws a net over him, and stakes the net down
to the ocean floor. Now Baal becomes King of Earth.

II. Baal's
Palace

Now Baal wants
his own palace but is afraid to build without the consent of El and
afraid to ask. So he asks Anat if she will go with him and intercede
on his behalf. She agrees but suggests that they solicit Asherah's
help as well. Baal leads a donkey, which Asherah rides, with Anat walking
behind. They arrive at Har Mo'ed and talk to El. El doesn't mind at
all but says he will not build the palace for Baal. Baal says of course
. . . and asks Kothar to build it for him. Kothar begins building and
says he ought to put a window in the turret, but Baal refuses. Kothar
reluctantly leaves out the window. Eventually the palace is finished.
All the gods ask why there isn't a window. Baal fears that Yamm will
sneak in through the window and kill him. So he thinks to do the same
to Yamm. He kills Yamm, and then asks Kothar to put the window in after
all. It is from that window that Baal hurls his lightning bolts.

III. Baal
Challenges Mot

Baal begins to
become arrogant and sends a message to Mot in the
Underworld that he's going to come down and take over. Mot is furious
and says he will devour him. Baal insists. Mot says, "Okay, come
down and visit, we'll sit down and have a bite to eat . . ." Baal
is gullible enough to go. After a meal and drink, he is stuck in the
Underworld (see common archetypes). The fertility
of the earth ends for six years. In the seventh year, Anat feels the
lack of a consort and wants to bring back Baal. She asks Shapash
to find his body when she travels through the Underworld and to bring
it back. Shapash does this. Anat is unable to bring him back to life.
She mourns. One day she encounters Mot and asks him to bring Baal back
to life. Mot says, "No way." She seizes Mot. With a blade,
she cleaves him; with a shovel, she winnows him; with fire she parches
him; with a stone, she grinds him; and then she scatters him in the
field. Baal comes back to life. This is symbolic of the harvest as well
as the sowing and fertilization of the ground. Seven years later, Mot
pulls himself together and battles with Baal. This cycle reverses on
itself every seven years.

Baal and Mot ->
Inanna's Descent to the Underworld (Archetype:
The Dying God Theme). A
seven year cycle because the Canaanites had
little arable land -- enough but very little. They could only plant
year-round to accomodate their available agriculture. Every seventh
year they would leave the ground fallow (the year of rest they called
"sabbath"). They stored food for the year of famine.
Sometimes, though, Mot would win the battle, and the year of sabbath
did not replenish the land sufficiently. Crops would be poor and this
made the next year of sabbath more difficult to prepare for. Their years
were measured in centuries. 7x7=49+1=50 The extra 1 is an extra year
lying fallow. This year was spent in festivals and was called "Jubilee."
If Mot won the battle on the seventh cycle, they would have two years
of famine. Then they would have to look elsewhere for food, most likely
in Egypt, because a bad year in Canaan usually meant a bad year in all
of the Near East. This led to the Biblical story of Joseph's journey
to Egypt and the seven years of famine, etc. In the year of Jubilee,
Canaanites would greet each other by asking "'Yit Zebul?"
which would be followed by the response "'Yi Zebul!" which
translates: "Does the prince live? Yes, the prince lives!"
Children born in the year of Jubilee were named appropriately. Queen
Jezebel of Tyre was born in Jubilee. Her father Ethzebel
must have been as well.

Egypt, the Upside-Down
Country. Upper Egypt is dry. Lower Egypt is a fertile delta. The two
kingdoms, Upper and Lower Egypt, feuded. Lower Egypt was more advanced
than Upper Egypt because of Mediterranean connections. Lower Egyptians
created writing systems, papyrus, etc.

Hieroglyphics
= sacred carvings.

Hieratic
= the legal writing system.

Demotic
= the writing of the people (shorthand).

Most of our knowledge
of Egypt comes from the occupation of the Greeks (i.e., Ptolemaic
Dynasty). Alexander the Great and Ptolemy built Alexandria, which became
the most cosmopolitan city of its time. People spoke and wrote Greek.
There were 32 dynasties, listed by the Greeks.

Pharaohs:
18th Dynasty - 1300 B.C. Amenhotep III, enamored of Amon,
the ram-headed god. Amenhotep III built a huge city with statues of
Amon called Karnak. Amenhotep IV destroyed the city because
he hated Amon. He loved Ra, the sun god, and
changed his name to Akhenaten ("Servant of the Sun").
He built a city for Ra in which he forbade the worship of other gods.
He failed in his attempts to form a monotheism, but he tried. He was
very unpopular. He was ugly. His wife was Nefertiti, the most
beautiful queen in Egyptian history. Akhenaten's nephew came to the
throne after his death. His advisors instructed him to restore all the
gods and he did so. He became very popular but died at the age of 19.
His name was Tutenkhamen.

Egyptians liked
sex. They were not uncomfortable with it. They practiced incest. The
eldest son and daughter of the pharaoh married and became the next pharaoh
and queen. Understandably, dynasties died out very quickly to infertility
and feeblemindedness. But incest was only practiced in the dynastic
house (this was also true of the Spanish court). There were many fine
Egyptian poets, almost all women of high birth, who wrote beautiful
erotic love poetry. Hatshepsut was the only female pharaoh.

Egypt was invaded
and occupied only twice. Once, c. 1700 B.C., the
Hyksos moved in and occupied Egypt. They built a fortified area
in Goshen. There were Hyksos pharaohs for 125 years. In 850 B.C. the
people of Kush occupied Egypt, giving rise to the Kushite pharaohs,
a magnificent black African kingdom. In 770 B.C., the Assyrians attempted
to wrest Egypt from the Kushites and failed. Assyrians and Egyptians
together eventually defeated the Kushites. When Egypt was conquered
by Rome, it ceases to be Egypt any longer. Egypt was conquered by the
Muslims in 600 A.D.

Gods
of Egypt

Nun,
the great primeval chaotic ocean, a goddess. From that ocean came a
mound of dry land, a hill.

Ra,
Atum, Amon, depending on where you hear about it -- ultimately
all three merge into one god anyway. The Sun God. Ra, the sun god, is
the first divine pharaoh. He creates Shu and Tefnut.
(See Ra)

Ptah,
a god, is in one city considered to be the god who created Nun.
When gods create other gods, they masturbate, thereby creating the next
god.

Shu,
god of air, god of wisdom. In his headdress he wears a Ma'at feather,
the feather of truth and wisdom. Shu was the second divine pharaoh.
A cartouche appears beside the image of a person in Egyptian artwork
or hieroglyphics to identify him or her. The Ma'at feather appears in
Shu's name. Shu and Tefnut give birth to Geb
and Nut.

Geb
is the earth (male), and Nut is the sky (female). This is a reversal
of the archetype. Geb becomes the third divine
pharaoh. Geb is usually shown with a green upper and a brown lower body,
symbolizing vegetation and soil. Nut is portrayed a as beautiful woman,
or as a cow, or as a woman with a cow's head. She has a flower vase
on her head (even when she is a cow) which also appears in her name
cartouche.

Nut
is inordinately gorgeous, and Ra is very attracted
to her. Ra has aged and retired. He is a crotchety, whimsical, egocentric
old man. Nut is true to her brother/husband and rejects Ra. Ra is furious.
He sends his son Shu to separate Geb and Nut who
splits them apart and holds them apart forever (a familiar archetype
with roles shifted). Ra, in his anger, decrees that they may never have
a child during any month of the year. Geb and Nut pray to an ancient
god (Thoth) who decides to help them. He gambles
with the moon and wins four intercalary days (days not on the calendar).
Geb and Nut have four children, one on each day. Thoth becomes the god
of the moon. Nut is shown stretched from horizon to horizon with stars
on her belly and a vase on her head. Geb is shown lying beneath her,
an arm and knee (representing mountains) reaching for her. Shu holds
Nut up.

[Note: Most gods
are shown ithnaphallic (with erect penis), and it was the Egyptians
who invented circumcision.]

Geb and Nut's children
are Osiris, Isis, Set, and Nephthys.

Set
comes from a god of Upper Egypt. He becomes considered a god of
sterility. He is only shown with an animal head on a human body. Archaeologists
have called the animal "the Typhonian animal" because they
couldn't recognize the animal. It could be an okapi or an aardvark (earth
pig). Set is a scheming unpopular character. His face has been chipped
away and replaced in bas-reliefs.

Nephthys
is the goddess of mist, vapor, and fog. She is barren. One night she
sneaks over to Osiris and seduces him in the dark. She has a son, Anubis,
the jackal-headed god. He was abandoned at birth to be raised by Isis.
He becomes the inventor of embalming and funeral ritual, the god of
funerals. He dwells in the Underworld. In Egypt, bodies were eviscerated.
The internal organs were placed in clay canopic jars whose lids were
sealed with wax or paraffin. The jar of the heart and lungs bore the
head of Anubis.

Osiris
is the fertility god (primarily of vegetation). He becomes pharaoh after
Geb. When he was born, a voice spoke in the universe proclaiming him
universal lord. As he grew up, his wisdom and sincerity were so clear
that his epithets were "The Good One" and "True of Voice."
When he becomes pharaoh, he institutes great changes. He outlawed cannibalism.
He taught how to worship the gods by building temples and therefore
towns and cities. He taught law (considered the father of civilization)
and agriculture (primarily grain), and how to make bread and beer.

Osiris decides
to go out and conquer the world with gentleness (i.e., civilize).
He leaves Isis on the throne to go out and achieve
his goal. When he returns, he is murdered by his brother Set. Isis brings
him back to life and feels he should retire to the Underworld and become
king there. Osiris is almost always shown in a winding shroud with just
his hands showing holding a shepherd's crook and a flail. Both are symbols
of kingship. Osiris is green.

Isis
is very beautiful. She bears the maternal aspect of a goddess who is
beautiful and loving but also dangerous to cross. She can also be shown
as a cow. She has a throne on her head. She taught women how to grind
grain, spin flax, and how to weave cloth. She taught men medicine. She
is the goddess of healing. After she brings Osiris back to life, they
have a son Horus. She wanted for her husband and
son the powers of Ra. She knew that each day Ra went for a long stroll.
She waits by his path, picks up some of the mud made by Ra's drool and
makes a poisonous snake. The next day, she places the snake in the same
place. It bites him and slithers away and he begins to die. He is unable
to cure himself (because he doesn't know the source of the curse). The
gods go to Isis. She talks privately with Ra and tells him he must tell
her his true name. He does and she cures him. She now has his power.
(Archetypes: (1) The Curing of the Curse
(2) The True Name)

Hathor,
goddess of love, beauty, the arts. She is a terrifying warrior. A combination
-- Isis and Hathor are two goddesses of the triple goddess. Hathor is
patron goddess of single women, goddess of female graces (art, music,
literature). She can also be shown as a cow. She has cow horns with
a sistrum between them. She is very beautiful but can be unbelievably
destructive.

Ra became fed up
with human beings so he sent Hathor to destroy humankind. So she came
to Earth and began slaughtering. She went into a blood frenzy (battle
hysteria). Ra changes his mind, but to stop her, he must destroy her
or knock her out. She is shown with a sword in each hand (Anat),
a smile on her face, and body parts flying about her. Ra plots her course
and sees that she will eventually come to a gigantic field with a high
wall surrounding it. So Ra fills the field with beer and turns the beer
red. When she gets there, she thinks it is blood and drinks it all and
passes out cold. When she awakens, the blood lust is gone -- replaced
by a horrible headache.

Ra
- Before rising and just at setting, he is called Atum ("to
be complete" or "to not exist"). As he is rising, he
becomes Kheper ("scarab" - a dung beetle which laid
its egg and encased it in its own feces and then rolled it along in
front of itself to protect it. In reality, the beetle gathered food
and rolled it back to its nest.) representing the principle of rebirth
- new life encased in refuse. At this point, Ra is either shown as a
scarab or as a man whose head is a scarab. Kheper also means the concept
of coming into existence or rebirth. They liked to show this because
they could show the solar disk of the sun being pushed by the scarab.
Once the sun is fully past rising, he becomes Ra. Ra
rides in the Man Jet Boat. He is, at this point, either a falcon
or a man with a falcon's head. He sits in the boat, at the stern, with
the solar disk in the boat in front of him. At the very front of the
boat are Shu and Thoth. They are sailing across the celestial Nile River
- the heavenly Nile (the Milky Way). There is a deadly peril in the
form of a gigantic dragon/serpent called Apep. He hates the gods
and waits for them in ambush. They are great warriors and Apep is seldom
successful in ambushing them. But once in a while there is a battle
with crashing weapons. We see the sparks and hear the crashes and a
lot of the river's water splashes and falls on us (a rainstorm). Once
in a very great while, Apep surprises them completely and devours them,
but they battle until they get out again (an eclipse). Then Ra becomes
Atum again because he is complete and he sets. He goes to a new boat
and his name changes after setting to Auf ("meat" or
"corpse"). As he sails through the Underworld, he has to pass
twelve deadly perils (one per hour). One time very early in the universe,
Ra wept and his tears fell to the ground and humans were created (in
Egyptian, "tear" and "human" are the same word).
One time Ra had an enormously powerful weapon: his right eye, the deadliest
weapon in the universe (Archetype: The Evil
Eye). The eye has a will of its own. One day it was out and it didn't
come back when it was supposed to. Ra created a new one to put in its
place. The eye then came back and was furious. Ra placed it in the center
of his forehead, a place of great honor. The eye goes on to be identified
as the Uraeus (the cobra on the front of a king's crown, representing
the pharaoh). All pharaohs are thought to be descended from Ra. Ra is
always shown with the solar disk on his head.

Thoth
is a very ancient god, dating back to the pre-dynastic period. The animals
that represent him are the dog-headed ape (less common) or a human with
the head of a dog-headed ape (baboon) or the ibis (more common) or as
a man with an ibis's head, in which case he is shown wearing a necklace
and headdress with the ibis's head in the headdress. This god was used
to replace the face of Set. Thoth is a very
wise and benevolent god. He is Osiris's counselor and that of the next
pharaoh. Then Thoth becomes the last divine pharaoh. He is the god of
magic and therefore the god of writing ("The Lord of the Holy Words").
He invented and taught hieroglyphics. When he retired from kingship,
he became "The Heavenly Scribe," a very important position
-- the recorder of all history. In heaven, he is the Arbiter of the
Gods, a referee for minor squabbles. He is the Spokesman of the Gods
and therefore the Ambassador as well.

Horus
comes from a god of Lower Egypt. He is very often shown as a 7-8 year
old Egyptian prince. A prince would have his head shaved except for
a single sidelock. If he is shown as an adult, like Ra, he is shown
as a falcon or as a falcon-headed man. Horus, later in life, got control
of the Eye of Ra and it began to be called the Eye of Horus. Some images
depict Horus and Set working together even before the merging of the
two kingdoms.

Death
and the Underworld

In the Underworld,
the soul or sprit is represented as a small bird with a human head.
The person's soul enters and immediately encounters Anubis,
who is holding a balance scale. The heart is placed on one of the pans
of the balance and the Ma'at feather is placed
on the other pan. If they balance, the person has been good and is sent
on to meet Osiris. Thoth
records these proceedings. The spirit appears before Osiris on his throne
with Isis behind him on his right and Nephthys
behind him on his left. Osiris then relegates the soul to its proper
place in the Underworld. If the heart does not balance with the feather,
the soul is sent to a waiting creature in the ground, "The Devourer
of Souls" (it has the hindquarters of a hippopotamus, the forequarters
of a leopard, and the head of a crocodile), who then eats the heart.
Sitting at the back of a huge hall on thrones are all of the gods (a
reflection of the Anunaki).

Set
Betrays Osiris

Osiris is returning
to Egypt after conquering the world by gentleness. Once he gets back,
he immediately gets an invitation to come to a great dinner festival,
alone, by Set. He feels he must accept. As he is
sitting there waiting for dinner, Set's men bring in a long beautifully
carved box and they begin laughing and climbing into it and jumping
back out again. Whoever fits it perfectly gets to keep it. Osiris is
invited to try. He climbs in, and Set slams it shut, nails it closed,
and throws it into the Nile where Osiris drowns. But the box drifts
out into the Mediterranean. It drifts across and lands on the shore
of Byblos of Canaan. It comes to rest at the foot of a straggly tree.
The tree grows like crazy, encloses the box, and grows very tall. The
king of the city is building a palace so he sends men out to fell the
tree. The moment the axe bites into it, a smell fills the air -- the
sweetest smell ever. Isis hears about this and figures
out what happened. She goes to Byblos and asks the king if they can
cut the tree open because Osiris is inside. The king agrees. She takes
Osiris back to Egypt. (This is an explanation for the existence of the
cedars of Canaan.) She wants to bring Osiris back to life but must first
return to the throne and tend to business. She decides to hide the body
deep in the swamps of the Nile Delta to protect it from Set. Set sneaks
into the delta, finds the body, chops it into fourteen pieces, and scatters
them all over the world. Isis discovers what has happened. She patiently
goes out and gathers all the pieces, finding the last one on the shore
of China. [Alternate: Isis finds thirteen of the fourteen pieces. The
piece not found was the phallus. It was not found because "it had
fallen into the brackish water of the Nile Delta and was devoured by
crabs." The crabs were then made so bitter that they could not
be eaten, even today.] She brings him to life, and from that union comes
Horus.

Isis worries about
Horus as he grows up because of the threat of Set and his desire to
take the throne. Isis hides Horus in the swamps of the Nile Delta. Set
immediately comes slithering in as a poisonous snake, bites Horus, and
leaves. So Horus begins to die. Isis is unable to cure him because she
doesn't know the source of the curse. Isis prays to Ra
who is passing over head at that moment. Ra stops the sun for two hours,
during which time he and Shu and Thoth come to Earth
and the four of them stand around Horus and focus their powers and cure
him (breaking the archetype). Horus safely
grows up because Set doesn't know he is still alive. (In Biblical history,
Joshua prays to God to stop the sun so that he can continue battle.)
Horus becomes ready to claim the throne, but Set wants it, too. They
battle one another in different forms of animals to no avail. Isis won't
relinquish the throne until this is settled.

The feud between
Horus and Set was much too big for Thoth to resolve.
So a tribunal was called. Ra presides. Set and Horus stand up one at
a time and argue back and forth. The gods agree with whomever most recently
spoke, or Ra inhibits the decisionmaking with his senility. The trial
continues for eighty years. At one point, Isis is ejected because she
is so vociferously on her son's side. She turns herself into a beautiful
young woman, slips into the trial, and sits beside Set. She begins to
weep heavily. Set asks her why she is weeping. She tells him and everyone
hears what she says. She says that she and her husband have a flock
of sheep, intended to be left to their son. But her husband's brother
treacherously murdered her husband to steal the flock from her son.
Set exclaims that this is horrible. "Your son deserves your flock.
Your husband's brother should be punished." Isis immediately turns
into a swallow, flies into the rafters, and screams out, "You have
condemned yourself!" The gods agree. Set disagrees. Ra disagrees
(because it wasn't his idea). And the trial has made no progress. The
only way to resolve this is to call the only god who isn't there - "He
Who Is True of Voice," Osiris who is in the Underworld. He comes
and stands before them and tells them he has thought it over carefully
and that Horus is best suited to the throne. The gods agree. But Ra
says the decision is invalid because Osiris is Horus's father. Osiris
steps up a second time and says that they can reach any conclusion they
want, but that he has at his disposal savage-faced messengers who can
drag down to the Underworld the heart of anyone Osiris commands. Horus
becomes Pharaoh. Set is chained in the desert where he must be the god
of sterility, where he must provide the wind which drives the Man
Jet Boat. Thoth becomes Horus's counselor. Thoth eventually becomes
the last pharaoh.

c. 1700 B.C. Through
the Levant travel a series of groups of people who are land pirates
(mostly Canaanites, some Hittites, etc.) called by the Egyptians the
Hyksos ("Shepherd Kings"), who conquered
Egypt and ruled for 150 years.

c. 1550 B.C. The
Egyptians ousted them and forced them back eastward. It took 50-100
years to clear them all out. They returned to their nomadic existence.
They were primarily goatherders, tribally divided. Among the Hyksos
are a group of twelve tribes who consider themselves to be related by
blood. Each tribe is named for its ancestors: twelve brothers, the sons
of Israel (Jacob). They called themselves the Children
of Israel.

The
Children of Israel

They were called
Habiru ('displaced people') which became 'Hebrew.' They wandered
in the northern Arabian Desert for 50-100 years. While there, they knew
the only way they could be safe was to emphasize their blood-related
kinship. Each tribe was ruled by the oldest grandfather in the tribe
who was the ruler and high priest (a patriarchy). This was known ast
the Time of the Patriarchs. There was much tribal disunity. The
elders of the tribes figured out a clever way to bring the tribes together.
They took a Canaanite god from their past, an ancient god named Yaw,
who might have been a fertility god, and developed Yhwh. They
were not permitted to pronounce his name aloud. They used instead the
name Tetragrammaton, "The Four-Letter Thing." Because
they couldn't speak his name, they called him Elohim,
or "Gods" (Canaanite), the Hebrew word for "lord,"
Adonai, and they used vowels to make Yahowah, which in
English became Jehovah. This is wrong. The correct translation
is Yahweh.

Having wandered
in the wilderness for a long time, once they developed this god figure,
the first thing he did was to demand a temple. Because they were nomads,
they built it out of a tent, a portable temple, the tabernacle.
In the inner chamber ("The Holy of Holies," also called
from the Latin, "The Inner Sanctum") was kept the Ark
of the Covenant. Only priests could enter the Holy of Holies on
pain of death. Yahweh spoke to the priests through the Ark of the Covenant
which was built to his specifications. In the Ark were kept the two
stone tablets of the Ten Commandments. The Children of Israel used the
Ark as their secret weapon in battle. But they lost it in battle to
the Philistines. The Philistines' punishment was an affliction of hemorrhoids.
Their goldsmiths had to make gold hemorrhoids to cure them. After some
time, the Hebrews decided to settle in Canaan. Yahweh directs them to
it as the Promised Land. The Hebrews put villages "to the
edge of the sword," killing every living thing, in order to occupy
land they wanted. They moved into Canaan. They wanted to oust the Philistines
(from present day Palestine), but the Philistines were bigger and fought
with iron weapons.

1250 B.C. There
was a southern group made up of one huge tribe called Judah and
one small trive called Benjamin. The other ten tribes settled
in the north and were simply called Israel. They didn't like
each other. Once they get into Canaan, they decide they like a lot of
the Canaanite gods, so they worship them until
about 800 B.C. And they no longer needed patriarchs. Each local area
was ruled by a judge. In general, they were ruled by prophets
who warned them constantly about the Philistines and the Canaanites.

1100 B.C. Samuel
the Prophet was ruling. People came to him and demanded tha they
be ruled by a king. He chooses Saul because he is a very tall
(VERY tall), strong man. Samuel anoints him king. He was a warrior,
a simple man. He tried his best to be king. He tried to unify the tribes.
Samuel generally gave much direction to Saul. One day Samuel said Yahweh
commanded that he put a village to the edge of the sword. But Saul was
trying to make a deal with a Philistine leader. Samuel comes and hacks
the Philistine to bits with a sword and says the kingship is withdrawn.
Samuel annoints David to be the next king. David was not related
to Saul. Samuel had, by selecting David, cut off Saul's line. Saul becomes
a manic-depressive. The Hebrews brought David before him to play music
for him. They became friends. Saul gives David a daughter for a wife.
One day, Saul throws a spear at David. He misses, but David leaves and
goes into exile as a cutthroat and a robber, hiring himself and his
followers out to a Philistine king.

At this point,
Samuel is dead. Saul is going to battle with the Philistines. Saul tells
one of his generals he wants to speak to a witch. He goes to the Witch
of Endor and asks to speak to the ghost of Samuel. She does call
him up, although she is terrified of Saul. Samuel's ghost appears and
rails at Saul, telling him he will lose. The next day, he loses. He
commits suicide. His son Jonathan is killed as well. David becomes
king.

David is a true
charismatic. People just WANT to follow him. David moves the capital
of the nation to Jerusalem and builds an extra quarter called Zion.
He begins to rule. He sees a woman called Bathsheba and invites
her over. She becomes pregnant. She's married to a Hittite mercenary
in David's army named Uriah. He is captain of 100 men. David
sends for Uriah. He rewards him and says spend the night with your wife,
hoping that they will sleep together and cover the shame of the pregnancy.
But Uriah instead sleeps on David's doorstep. So David writes a letter
to the general of the army. Uriah is to deliver it. He is honored. The
letter says to place Uriah at the hottest point in the battle and just
leave him there. He is killed. David marries Bathsheba. The baby she
carries dies in a very short time. This is perceived to be their punishment.
Later, Bathsheba becomes pregnant again and gives birth to Solomon.
Things begin to go awry in the land. A prophet Nathan comes to
court. Nathan says he is pleading a suit for another man who owned a
single female ewe. His neighbor owned a whole flock of sheep. One day,
his neighbor rose up and murdered this man just to steal the ewe. David
rises up and asks where the man is and exclaims that he won't get away
with such a deed. Nathan replies, "Thou art the man." David
repents. He is from that point on a great king. David is doomed never
to have a happy life. All of his children grow up to be rotten and rebellious.
On his deathbed, he makes Solomon his co-ruler because Solomon is not
in line for the throne. David dies. Solomon has both of the brothers
who lay claim to the throne as well as a supporting general murdered.
Solomon is king.

Solomon was very
wise and very wealthy -- the wealthiest king in the history of the Hebrews.
He built the Temple of Solomon. He taxed his people to death.
He put them into forced labor all to build his temple. The Queen
of Sheba came to visit him . . . and from that union came a son
Menelek. He founded a new dynasty called the Lion of Judah.

The story of the
baby which Solomon suggests should be cut in half to appease the two
women who lay claim to him is a political allegory for Solomon's willingness
to divide up Israel. The Song of Solomon and Proverbs
were written long after his death. He had 300 wives and 600 concubines.
He was not the best of kings. By the time of his death, the unification
work was undone. He did not choose a successor. His death marks the
end of the Golden Age of Israel (Saul, David, Solomon). This
age is limited to the reign of David for the Hebrews.

700 B.C. Assyrians
are in control. Israel's leaders and families were replaced by foreigners.
Thus the "ten years of the lost tribes." Judah believed all
of Israel was done away with.

600
- 500 B.C. Babylonian Captivity. King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon
took all the people from Jerusalem to Babylon to build (700 - 615 B.C.).
They were freed when the Persians defeated Babylon. Eventually, they
went back to Jerusalem after having been heavily influenced by the Babylonians
and the Persians.

c. 1500 B.C. The
Maccabees, led by Judas Macabee ("The Hammer"), revolted
and regained Jewish independence then lost it to the Romans. The victory
is celebrated at Chanukah. Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans
70-72 A.D. The Hebrews dispersed throughout the world in what is called
the Diaspora.

In the beginning
. . .

Yahweh
was jealous, vengeful, mean, nasty, easily duped (not exceptionally
bright) -- he bore all the faults of humans. He was the strongest of
all the gods, signifying only that the Hebrews recognized "all
the gods." The Tower of Babel was a tower being built to
reach the gods. The gods realized the people were going to succeed,
so the gods struck them with many languages, causing disunity. Language
divided groups spread throughout the world. Then all the gods spread
throughout the world and chose the groups they wanted to take. Yahweh,
the strongest of all, CHOSE the Hebrews. Thus they are called the "Chosen
People." When the Hebrews came to Babylon, they saw the ruins of
a great ziggurat. The Babylonians called it Bab' El, "The
Gate of God." They were referring to Marduk.
The Hebrews altered this meaning. There was a contest, at one point,
between Yahweh and Baal (Elisha and the Priests
of Baal). The Two Altars.

Yahweh is a mean
god. Anyone who breaks the law is finished. A village was put to the
sword. One man kept a small bag of gold. His punishment: he dies, his
immediate family dies, all his relatives and all their descendants are
cursed forever. Yahweh hardens Pharaoh's heart to NOT let the Hebrews
go and then punishes him by killing the first born of all the Egyptian
families. He is not omnipotent, not omniscient, not smart. Satan
tricked God twice (with Job). Yahweh is very primitive, slow-witted.

The Hebrews may
have developed monotheism from Akhenaten (or
vice versa). The Hebrews practiced temple prostitution.

When the Hebrews
returned from Babylon, they brought back ideas quickly absorbed by the
Hebrew people. For instance, second and third level gods were introduced.
After Yahweh, a top echelon of named gods, and then, millions of unnamed
gods were added. They called those the Watchers
(like guardian angels).

c.
800 B.C. The Books of the Hebrews. Edited in 500 B.C. after the return
from Babylon. c. 300 B.C. They created a canon
called the Torah. Shortly thereafter, the Jewish ghetto in Alexandria
could no longer speak or read in Hebrew. Alexandrians spoke Greek. The
Greek translation of the holy scriptures is called the Septuagint
(translated by 70 scholars, yielding a Greek translation of the Torah
in 70 B.C.). Later, a new Torah was written, throwing out 14 books of
scripture. The original Torah, from which the Septuagint was translated,
is no more. From the Septuagint come the Old Testament of all Christian
Catholic Bibles. In 1611, King James translated from the Torah, resulting
in the Protestant Bible plus the Apocrypha. All the books that
did not get into the Torah are called the Pseudepigraphia, "The
False Books." Included among these is, for instance, the Book
of Enoch. The Midrash, a written documentation of oral tradition,
was written by the Hebrew priests and rabbis circa the Middle Ages.

Talmud.
Explanations and precedents. In 1946, a shepherd found the Dead Sea
Scrolls at Kumran. They are now being translated. They are the oldest
extant books we know of, circa 100 B.C.

The
Watchers. There is no English translation. We call them "messengers"
instead. Messengers and Great Messengers. In Greek, these are the Angelloi
and the Archangelloi. These were gods.

The Hebrews loved
lists and labels. A list of the four most commonly encountered of the
lower gods is as follows (none of these four existed before the Babylonian
Captivity):

Michael.
(Micha 'El) "He Who Is Like 'El' (God)." The leader
of Yahweh's armies. He is known as the Prince of Peace. He stands
on Yahweh's right. (There were no armchair generals and there were no
left-handed people. The sword was carried in the right hand. The best
warrior defends the vulnerable right side.) He is the scribe of the
gods and a special champion of Israel. He is a very important figure.
He did not exist before the return from Babylon.

Gabriel.
(Gabri 'El) "The Strength of El." He stands on Yahweh's
left. He is the next in power. He is a great judge made of fire (derived
from Shamash). The Announcer. He did
not exist before the Babylonian Captivity.

Raphael.
(Rapha 'El) "The Healing Power of El." The god of healing
and and medicine and the physical well-being of humans, their spiritual
and physical welfare. He presides over the souls of humans. He appears
in the Apocrypha.

Uriel.
(Uri 'El) "The Fire of El." Described as a divine emanation,
divine radiance. He resides in the Underworld. He is also knwon as Nasargiel,
which probably doesn't mean anything but is rather a Hebrewization of
Nergal of the Babylonians. He is a psychopomp,
a leader of souls. He leads spirits to the Underworld, and can also
lead souls from the Underworld to the place of judgment.

Sammael.
(Samma 'El) "The Poison of El." God of death. He has
a thousand eyes. You cannot escape him. He was sent to destroy the Egyptian
firstborn at the first Passover, when the Hebrews were told to spread
fresh lamb's blood over the doorway to protect their own children. The
feast of Passover is actually a much more ancient Canaanite feast, the
reason for which the Hebrews couldn't remember.

Rahab.
"The Arrogant One." God of the ocean.

Among
the lower echelon of gods were the Cherubim, looking like the
Shedu, found on the top of the Ark of the Covenant.
They hold up Yahweh's throne.

The
Seraphim are fiery serpents (actually made of fire) with six
pairs of wings. Their role is to fly around the throne of Yahweh
singing "Holy Holy Holy."

Demons are usually
unpleasant. In three ways, they are like humans: (1) They take nourishment
, (2) they propagate, and (3) they die. In three ways, they are like
gods: (1) They know the future, (2) they can pass through solid objects
unhindered, and (3) they can fly. They can be invisible. They can change
size. They inhabit places humans avoid. They like to spread familial
disunity and unhappiness. They steal things so people will accuse each
other. But deoms have no power over anything which has been measured,
counted, packaged, or sealed.

Creation

The 1st
Creation Story. In the beginning, there was
the great primeval chaotic ocean and the spirit of Yahweh. The first
thing he created was light (with the sound of his voice). There were
six days of creation. He created man in his own image. The seventh day
was the Sabbath (from Canaanites), and so he
rested.

Chapter
2 begins the 2nd Creation Story. All there is is desert. A flood
comes up and waters the land. The first thing Yahweh does is create
man. He creates the Garden of Eden with the Tree of Life
and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Yahweh comes
looking for Adam. Adam and Eve were hiding because they
were ashamed of their nakedness. Yahweh asks, "Who told you you
were naked?" When the serpent is discovered to be the culprit,
snakes are cursed to crawl on their bellies. Enmity is established between
man and snakes. Women will experience pain in childbirth and be subject
to their husbands. Eve is the "Mother of All Living Things"
(see the Sumerian Ki/Ninhursag). Yahweh
says, "Man has become like us," and he sends man from the
Garden of Eden to keep him from eating of the Tree of Life and living
forever (Archetype: The Lying Messenger).

The 4th Creation
Story appears in Job Chapter 38. It is architectural and
poetic.

The
3rd Creation Story (there are references to it throughout the Old
Testament) surrounds the character called Leviathan. Job
38:8 ". . .who shut in the sea with doors . . . imprisoned the
pride of the ocean." Psalm 74:13 "Thou didst divide
the sea by Thy might, break the heads of the dragons, crushed the head
of Leviathan." (The ocean is a many-headed dragon.) Job
26 ". . . power stilled the sea, by understanding smote Rahab .
. .his hand pierced the fleeing serpent." Isaiah 27 "Yahweh
will punish Leviathan, the fleeing serpent . . .will slay the dragon."
Job 41 Yahweh says, "Leviathan, the sea monster associated
with chaos. Man cannot conquer Leviathan. He is king over all the sons
of pride." Rahab is just a name for Leviathan.
Yahweh imprisoned him and one day will go back and kill him. Leviathan
comes from Lotan. In Hebrew, the word for
"ocean" is Tehom, the plural is Tehomet (from
Tiamat). The word was once a proper noun. Parallels:
Ninurta imprisons Kur, Ea
kills Apsu, Marduk kills Tiamat, Baal
kills Lotan, and Yahweh defeats Leviathan.

Adam's
First Wife

Adamah ("the
second layer of soil," "the red clay" [The clay looked
like flesh, like blood. For Hebrews, life is in the blood.]). Sammael
says to Yahweh, he's having difficulty getting
a consort. He asks Yahweh to create one out of the same red clay. Yahweh
creates Lilith. But she didn't like Sammael much either. She
liked Adam, so she went to be his consort. In almost
no time, she began to become uppity. She thought they should be equal.
She demanded the occasional upper position in sex. Adam refused. She
left him. She went off and began having 100 children a day on her own
(demons). They are called Lilim. Adam complains
to Yahweh, so Yahweh creates three minor gods and sends them to bring
Lilith back. She refuses. So they begin to kill 100 of her children
a day. She is furious. At one point, Lilith sneaked in and seduced Adam
and gave birth to Shedim, another group of demons. (Yahweh made
Eve of the red clay, too. She and Adam didn't get
along so Yahweh destroyed her and made another one. Yahweh made and
destroyed 6 Eves before making the 7th Eve from Adam's rib. She was
Adam's 8th wife.) Lilith goes on to become two separate characters:

(1) Lilith, also
called the "Desert Night Monster" or the "Hairy
Night Monster." She's still angry about the death of her children.
She loves to find women in childbirth, murder the woman, and devour
the infant. (This story used to be used to explain disposing of children
who were born physically imperfect.) This can be avoided by wearing
a medallion around your neck with the name of Yahweh on it.

(2) A very beautiful
woman called Lamia who visits men in their dreams, seduces them,
and drains the life out of them. (The Romans borrowed this idea in the
form of a male, Incubus, and a female, Succubus.) Lamia
can be recognized because she has eyes on her breasts.

Cain
and Abel

Abel is
accepted, and Cain is not. This demonstrates the archetypal
preference of herding over farming. The actual murder is an allegory.
Cain murders Abel out in the field. This is a fertility sacrifice. Yahweh
curses Cain: the ground will no longer yield to him and he must wander.
Yahweh protects Cain from murder by promising vengeance sevenfold on
the murderer.

Cain is an eponymous
ancestor of the people called Kenites. "Cain" =
"smith." The Mark of Cain lies in an interesting place.
Law in this time had to be law of vengeance as a deterrent, but it only
worked if everyone recognized you came from a strong tribe. The mark
had to be on the hands or face to be visible. The Kenites would tattoo
a simple mark -- two concentric circles or a circle with two perpendicular
transecting lines in the center -- using a piece of copper or soft metal
which can be tapped with a hammer, on their foreheads. This led to the
Greek story of the Cyclops.

Seth is
the ancestor of the same people (although it seems different in the
listing). Then Enos and Lamech. In the second list, there
are ten patriarchs (Adam -> Noah). This shows the Hebrews getting
in line with the Sumerian and Babylonian tradition of King Lists (10
kings before the flood). In all three lists, all kings live abnormally
long lives and the seventh king is especially favored. Enoch was seventh
on the Hebrew list. He was taken alive into heaven. Lamech is a blind
old man who murders Cain and his grandson in a fit of peak.

The
Flood

Genesis
6 (Read the Book of Enoch). At
this time, humans became wild and bored and decadent, and Yahweh became
angry. So he sent a deputation of gods led by Azazel to earth
to straighten them out. They saw what men were doing -- gambling, chasing
beautiful women, fighting, drinking. They decided to chase women, too.
These unions gave birth to demons called Nephilim. They taught
humans how to make weapons and wage war and the art of make-up and charms
(to women). The Nephilim began eating humans and then each other (cannibalistic
giants). This is what caused Yahweh to decide to destroy the world and
everyone in it. He sent a great flood. Noah and his family all survived.
Azazel was chained in the desert where he became a desert monster --
a sterility god (Set). Ever after, Azazel and his
followers are called the Fallen Gods, the Fallen Angels.
Every year near autumn, Hebrews would take two goats with a medallion
bearing the name of Yahweh and of Azazel on each. The goat of Yahweh
was sacrificed to Yahweh. The goat of Azazel was ritualistically blamed
for all the sins of the Hebrews. They then drove it out into the desert
to be killed by Azazel ("scapegoat"). This was done on the
Day of Atonement or Yom Kippur.

Flood
Story # 1
(Babylonian form)

Flood
Story #2
(Sumerian - more scholarly)

Genesis
6:8 Noah found favor.

Genesis
6:9 Noah was righteous.

Genesis
7:6 Noah was 600 years old.

Genesis
7:11 2/17 600 years.

Genesis
6:19 Two of every animal

Genesis
7:2 seven pair of every clean animal, one pair of every unclean
animal

Yahweh says he
will never again destroy mankind. Hamm, father of Canaan,
saw Noah's nakedness. Canaan was cursed. Noah had a reputation for being
a drunk. Shem, Hamm, and Japheth were his sons. Hamm's
son Canaan is 12 years old. Noah fully intended to have another son
who could be the ancestor of all the servants of his three sons. Canaan
didn't like the idea because he didn't want to share the world with
more people. He knew of Noah's problem with alcohol. He waited for him
to be passed out naked, and he castrated him so that Noah awakens and
realizes what has happened. This is all a political allegory
which justifies the violent takeover of Canaan. (Later, this was used
as a justification for taking African slaves.) Noah could no longer
be a patriarch because he was physically maimed.

The
Hebrews also borrowed from the Persians. They
borrowed a philosophy called dualism, a belief
that there is only good and evil in the universe and that they are constantly
at odds. On each side, there is a great god and the two are approximately
equal in power. c. 500 B.C. The Hebrews began to tailor their religion
around this idea. There was a huge gap of time during which no one is
apparently leading the forces of evil. There was no god powerful enough
to challenge Yahweh. So bit by bit for the next
two centuries, they developed an intriguing complex. They began with the
name of a role -> the satan, which means "an adversary."
The job of the satan was to be the Devil's Advocate. This could
be any god filling this position. His job is to tempt or frighten, to
test, to see if people are being true to Yahweh. The role eventually evolved
into a being, Satan. They built into this character traits from
other gods.

From Sammael,
Satan takes on the role of the unpopular god who inhabits the Underworld
and is associated with hell. He smells of sulfur (brimstone).

From Leviathan,
Satan has tremendous strength, eagerness to do battle with Yahweh. He
is a disgusting kind of creature, consumed by arrogance.

From Azazel,
Satan disobeys Yahweh. He is a sterility figure. The Army of Fallen
Angels is his. He is THE Fallen Angel. The goat sacrificed to Azazel
gives Satan that association ("capricious" = "goat-like").
The horns, cloven hooves, tail, goatee.

By 200 B.C., Satan
has become a great character. He is a very late figure in the progression
of this religion. Christians used a reference in Isaiah: "How
you are fallen, O Lucifer, Child of the Dawn." Saint Jerome said
that must be it. Lucifer must have been an archangel, etc., etc.
However, Isaiah 14 speaks to King Nebuchadnezzar, who caused
the Babylonian Captivity. He had fallen insane. "Child of the Dawn"
(Lucifer = morning star = Venus [Latin]) is merely a reference to Nebuchadnezzar's
amazing rise and fall from greatness. The Christian story of Lucifer
has no bibilical foundation.

Samson,
the Nazarite

As a young man,
Samson kills a lion with his bare hands. He is a great Hebrew
judge except that he loves Philistine women. Eventually, he ends up
with a Philistine temple prostitute named Delilah. He is incredibly
big, unbelievably strong, and really stupid. Four times, Delilah asked
him the secret of his strength and betrayed him. Eventually he gives
in to her and reveals the secret of his strength: his long hair which
is never to be cut. She betrays him again. The Philistines cut his hair
as he sleeps and seize him, easily overpowering the weakened man. He
ends up replacing an ox on a grinding mill, blind and feeble. But during
his captivity, his hair begins to grow back. He is taken to the Temple
of Dagon, where with his renewed strength, he pushes
the pillars out and kills everyone, including himself. "Samson"
comes from "Shamash." He has a
parallel in Greek mythology, Heracles (Hercules). Heracels
kills a lion whose skin cannot be pierced. He strangles it, skins it,
and wears the skin for the rest of his life. He is done in because of
a woman. He builds a funeral pyre, climbs up on it, and destroys himself.
Samson comes from Enkidu in the Epic
of Gilgamesh.

There were Aryans
in the Indus Valley. Some went to India, some to Persia. Persians call
themselves Aryans. They were called "Persian" by the Greeks.
Their religion changed circa 600 B.C. Before this, the gods were Aryan,
i.e., Indo-European. Persia was very insular. They moved in and
took the world away from Babylon in 500 B.C. On the Persian plateau,
there were many petty kingdoms which combined into an empire c. 600
B.C. In about 100 years, they took over the world.

The
Creation Story

In the beginning,
Earth was a flat plain under a solid dome with 178 stars and a sun and
moon fixed to the dome. The land was surrounded by the cosmic ocean.
Outside the dome were two vague amorphous deities: the "Benevolent
One" Ahura Mazda, and the "Malevolent One" Angra
Mainyu, both of whom were male.

One day, Angra
Mainyu decided to mess things up. He broke through the dome, went down
into the ocean, and came back up through the earth, forming a volcanic
mountain. He continued to do this until the earth was covered with mountains
and valleys. The jarring vibration broke all the stars and the sun and
moon loose and they began to slide westward. At the horizon, they broke
out of the dome, went around to the other side and came back in. Each
made a separate hole, leaving 180 holes on each side (as in angular
degrees).

Ahura
Mazda decides to be creative because things are now in motion. This
is the beginning of life. He plants two trees: the Tree of Seeds
(the source of all the other trees in the universe) and the Tree
of White Haoma. Haoma is a sacred drink (like the Indian
"Soma") which gave the gods immortality
and all manner of inspiration. It is considered either very alcoholic
or very narcotic. No one is sure. It is pressed from a plant. It is
a milky white fluid that turns yellow while fermenting. Another name
for it is Amrita, which is the same as Ambrosia, the food
of the Greek gods. It is a vital drink for the gods. Angra Mainyu is
against the Haoma. He sends a great lizard of the ocean to chew on the
roots of the Tree of White Haoma. Ahura Mazda sends 13 fish to swin
in around the roots and keep the lizard at bay. Eventually the lizard
will prevail, but the fish help to delay this. The Tree of Seeds brings
forth all other trees. All life begins.

Haoma is
also personified as a god (very vague) but only to justify its worship.

Vayu, the
God of the Wind. "He Who Goes Forward and He Who Goes Backward."
A very powerful early god. He is neutral until Ahura Mazda and Angra
Mainyu give sacrifices to him. Then Vayu allies himself with Ahura Mazda.

Anahita,
the Great Goddess of Human Fertility. The source of the cosmic ocean.
She purifies the male seed and the mother's womb and the mother's milk.
A very popular goddess worshipped by temple prostitution. (As a conscription,
all young women had to serve as temple prostitutes. But they were buried
alive if they were caught having sex outside the temple before marriage.)

Tishtrya,
the God of Plant and Animal Fertility. Also a storm god. He brings the
rain. In oppostion to Tishtrya is Apaosha, the God of Draught.
The first time they fought, Tishtrya was a great white stallion with
gold trappings and Apaosha was a black stallion with all black trappings.
They fought very hard and Apaosha was winning. Tishtrya complained to
Ahura Mazda that the reason he was losing was that mankind was not giving
him the proper rituals. So Ahura Mazda himself performed a ritual giving
Tishtrya the strength to win. And humanity learned by this example never
to forget to perform the rituals to Tishtrya. A complement to Tishtrya
is a figure called Rapithwin, the Lord of the Noonday Heat. This
is the heat that is necessary for the plants to grow. In the winter,
Rapithwin retreats to the Underworld and keeps the subterranean waters
warm so the roots of the plants won't freeze.

Atar. People
will say the Persians were fire worshippers. They did have fire temples
devoted to a sacred flame. But they were not worshipping fire itself.
Ahura Mazda has by this time become the sun god. The Persians really
idolize him. He is most powerful. They thought the sun was made of fire,
and that fire on Earth was sent from the sun, arriving via lightning
bolts. That means that fire on earth is simply an extension of Ahura
Mazda himself. Thus the use of fire in their worship rituals. But they
called earthbound fire Atar, a deity, like a surrogat Ahura Mazda.
To make their sacred flame, they would gather a huge stack of cut wood
to be blessed by a priest outside the temple. They would bring some
wood in and ignite it. To make it sacred, they poured clarified goat
butter on it. Then it would be sacred and eternal. If a priest let it
go out, he would be buried alive. Their attitude toward fire was different.
Our view is that fire is a purifying agent. But if something fell into
the flame, the Persians considered the flame to be contaminated and
it had to be extinguished.

Zarathustra

628 B.C. Zarathustra
is born. 551 B.C. He dies.

He was an enormounsly
important prophet. The Persians were astrologers. The Greeks called
him Zoroaster (Zodiac Star). But he was not an astrologer.
Before he was born, his birth was announced to his mother. He was born
with a Favr (an aura -- believed to be a special link with the
gods). Zarathustra then smiled, indicating that even at birth, he was
aware. In his early teens, he withdrew from the world and disappeared.
He was working on his version of true religion. At age 30, he reappeared.
Angra Mainyu tried to tempt him and frighten him out of teaching his
new religion. Zarathustra resisted and began teaching. (Note the parallels
in this story to the stories of Christ and Buddha.)
For ten years, no one would listen to Zarathustra. Finally he converted
a king, and the kingdom followed. But the king's counselors were jealous
and slandered Zarathustra, landing him in prison. He talked a lot with
Ahura Mazda and wrote what became the core of the Persian canon
the Avesta. He was later released and became a leader. At 77,
he was worshiping in a fire temple when robbers broke in and he was
killed.

The
Universe as Zarathustra Saw It

Ahura Mazda is
most powerful. He created Spenta Mainyu and Angra Mainyu. They
have free choice of the principles they embrace. Spenta Mainyu chose
Asha (good) and Angra Mainyu chose Druj (evil), thus the
advent of dualism. We are all products of dualism.
This ideology has prevaded the entire Western World. There are also
Righteousness and Wickedness, Order and Chaos, Truth and The Lie (Persians
are in the Truth category -- everyone else is part of The Lie). Each
side has an army. Spenta Mainyu has the Ahuras. Angra Mainyu
has the Daevas. Ahura Mazda is on the side of Spenta Mainyu.
They eventually merge into a single god Ormazd. Angra Mainyu
becomes Ahriman.

There are also
a number of "archangels" in several categories:

(1) Amesha Spenta,
"The Blessed Beloved Ones." There are six of them. Each has
two characteristics: something in nature and some human virtue.

(2) Yazata.
There are 40 of them. They are all standard gods. The most famous is
Mithras whose cult spread throughout the world. He was a god
of oaths and vows and contracts, all of which were sealed by swearing
to Mithras. He is shown grabbing a bull's head and thrusting a sword
into it. His name comes to mean "contract" as a common noun.

The
After Life

When a man dies,
the spirit waits for three days on Earth. On each of the three nights,
it contemplates: (1) the things he said, (2) the things he thought,
and (3) the things he did. The spirit then travels to Chinvat,
"The Bridge of the Requiter" ("requite" = "to
give back in kind") where one is going to get one's comeuppances.
If you were middle of the road, you would go to Hamstagen, total
oblivion. If you were really good, you would be met by a beautiful young
girl who would take you by the hand and lead you across the Chinvat.
The young woman represents the conscience, which is hardly used in the
life of one who is good. That is why she is young. If you have been
evil, you are met by a disgustingly ugly old hag who signals to a couple
of ogres who take clubs and drive you onto the bridge, which is now
like a sword blade turned on edge. You cut yourself up and fall right
off into a vat of molten metal. You end up in the House of the Lie,
a place of eternal torment, depending on what you did. If you were good,
you go to the House of Song, an eternal paradise. Followers of
Zarathustra thought this was too harsh. Even when he was an old man,
they were beginning to change this: On a day called Frashkart,
"The Rehabilitation of the Universe," a person called Saoshyant,
"He Who Saves," will save everyone. They hoped it would be
Zarathustra, but after he died, it developed so that it would just be
a descendant of Zarathustra and they would know by the stars. Frashkart
meant that the Saoshyant would reunite the souls to the bodies. They
would all pass through the molten metal, only it would not hurt and
they would be cleansed to go on to the House of Song. Ahriman and his
followers would either be annihilated or sent to the House of the Lie.

Christianity borrowed
heaven, hell, and limbo (the afterlife destination
for anyone never exposed to Christianity) from the Persians.
Christians added Purgatory. "Washed in the Blood of the
Lamb" comes from the passage through molten metal (see "The
After Life" in Myths of Persia). Virtually all the tenets of
Christianity come from this culture.

Yeshuah
- "Yahweh is Salvation" -> Joshua. The New Testament
was all written in Greek. Yeshuah was translated as "Jesus."
Yeshuah was born in Nazareth. His " last name" was Messiah
or "the Annointed One." In Geeek, this was translated to Christos.
He was a real man. Our only sources of information are the four gospels
("gospel" = the good message) which should be in the order
Mark, Matthew, Luke, John, rather than that
with which we are familiar. John is the inspirational one. Mark
was not written earlier than 72 A.D., and was based on an earilier written
work in oral tradition. Matthew and Luke were written
circa 80-85 A.D. Both were based on Mark and the "Q Document"
(of unknown origin). John was written circa 90-110 A.D. None of these
men were disciples. In addition, we have a pseudepigraphic text for
the New Testament which is referred to as the "Lost Books of the
Bible." The Christian canon was not set until
c. 400 A.D. by Saint Jerome, with these other books left out. The authors
of the gospels had quite a challenge in writing the biography of a man
dead now forty or fifty years. Only Mark saw Yeshuah alive. Yeshuah
never said anything about his background. Matthew and Luke tried to
write full biographies. Luke is known as the man who gave us Christmas.
Mark started in Yeshuah's adult life. Matthew and Luke are called mythographers.
They had to make the beginning up, so they first set out to fulfuill
all the prophecies from Isaiah, etc. We have to try to figure out what
might have actually happened.

The predicted appearance
of the Messiah led to the appearance of many Messiahs. Yeshuah was born
in the reign of Herod (20 B.C. - 4 B.C.) When Gregory was setting
up the calendar, he missed one olympiad. It is believed he was actually
born in 20 B.C. because he was called "rabbi" which was a
title only used on men over 50. He was descended from the house of Jesse
(as was David). The genealogies in Matthew and Luke are
not the same but both trace Yeshuah back to Jesse.

The
Immaculate Conception

The "Immaculate
Conception" actually refers to the conception of Mary and
not that of Yeshuah. Her mother's name was Anna. Her father was
Joachim. Anna became pregnant without Joachim. Christians believed
that sin passed through the father. ("Divine Conception" is
almost always the coupling of a male god and a human woman. Usually
the god takes the form of a bird.) Anna gives birth to Miriam
(whose name becomes Mary much later). She was a very bizarre young lady.
No man wanted her. In the village of Nazareth, all the single men were
called out. Joseph's walking staff suddenly sprouted leaves and a dove
perched on top of it. He was selected to betrothe himself to Mary. Joseph
knew that if people saw Mary pregnant, they would stone her. (In 1852,
the Pope declared Mary a permanent virgin.)

When the readers
of the Septuagint saw that the Messiah would
be born to an Almah (a young woman old enough to give birth),
they could only translate this into "virgin," as there is
no equivalent word. From that, the writers of Matthew and Luke
thought that, in order to fulfill prophecy, Mary had to be a virgin.
Luke 2, A Roman census is to be taken. (1) But Romans would not
allow men to leave their home to be counted. (2) No Roman census was
taken at this time. One of the reasons Yeshuah was not accepted by the
Jews is that he was a Nazarene, i.e., not a Jew born in Bethlehem.
We have no idea what time of year it was. Until 400 A.D., Christmas
was celebrated in May. So they went to Bethlehem and there was no room
at the inn -- why? To symbolize a simple, humble beginning. His birth
was signalled by the stars. (In the pseudepigraphia, it is said that
this stellar message was in accordance with the prophecy of Zarathustra.)
In the story of Abraham, at his birth a star moved from the East
and stood over the place of his birth. Zarathustra, Buddha, Noah,
Moses, etc. -- all were born with an aura. This set the precedent for
Jesus. The magi arrived (Persian astrologers) "according
to the prophecy of Zarathustra," bringing gold, frankincense, and
myrrh (symbolizing earthly kingship, spritual kingship, and early death).
By the Middle Ages, the three magi have names and physical descriptions.
Kaspar is a tall, slim elderly man (70-80 years old). Melchior
is younger, shorter, more robust (40-50 years old). Balthazar
is taller and black (40-50 years old). The crêche is the nativity
scene. The magi go to Herod and tell him of the birth of the child which
they have read in the stars. Herod sends soldiers into Bethlehem to
slaughter every male under the age of 2. (Classically, it is called
the Slaughter of the Innocents. This is
historically innacurate. It is an archetype.)

An angel sends
Mary and Joseph to Egypt to escape the purge, (called the "Flight
to Egypt") which fulfills an Old Testament prophecy: "Out
of Egypt I have called my son . . ." But this text is really referring
to the Exodus. Jesus's other appearance before adulthood is at the temple
(analogy to Buddha). It is not just his wisdom that astounds the priests,
but the fact that he knows EVERYTHING. Mark 6:3 discusses Jesus's
brothers and sisters. There are 18 lost years before Yeshuah appears
and begins teaching. Yeshuah is not very nice to his mother. Some believe
he had to have been married as a young man in the occupation of a carpenter
(rather than a prophet). John 2 (when Jesus turns the water into
wine) may be a recounting of Jesus's wedding. Who is being married?
Customarily, the groom provided the food and drink. It does not make
much sense that Mary would have come to Jesus to tell him that the wine
had run out if he was merely a guest at the wedding. Perhaps he was
married to Mary Magdalene. There is no evidence that she was ever a
prostitute. Yeshuah was very well-versed in the teachings of the Essene.

When Yeshuah begins
his work, he is baptized by John the Baptist. Yeshuah goes into
the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights to be tempted (like Zarathustra
and Buddha). Yeshuah was a first-class charismatic (and very appealing
to the poor). He never claims to be the Messiah. Only his followers
do. There is scientific evidence of the validity of "faith healing"
or what is medically referred to as "hysterical reversal."
In Luke 8, the hemorrhaging woman looks to be healed by touching
the garment of Jesus. "Someone touched me, for I felt the power
go out of me." The resurrection of Lazarus is part of the "Wandering
Jew" archetype, a synthesis of Cain,
Lazarus, and Cartophilus (a Greek Jew standing on the Street of Sorrows
where the cross was carried -- Yeshuah looks at him and says, "You
shall wait here until I return."). As in the Rime of the Ancient
Mariner, for example.

Yeshuah was a very
bright man. Much of what is told is fascinating because of the eyewitness
detail. The priests were threatened by Yeshuah. They would try to trap
him verbally, test him publicly with dilemmas. He spoke in parables
because it was safer to avoid arrest. He used to squat down and doodle
in the dirt before answering the dilemmas.

The
Crucifixion

Yeshuah comes into
Jerusalem on a white donkey. Palm fronds are laid in his path. He has
The Last Supper, followed by The Arrest (The Betrayal
by Judas Iscariot). He is taken to the Sanhedron and found guilty of
heresy. He is turned over to the Romans, and Pontius Pilate finds him
guiltless. But to appease the mobs of people and the Jewish leaders,
he has Jesus scourged and then crucified. He washes his hands. Jesus
is crucified at 9 A.M. on Friday. While he is on the cross, he is offered
vinegar and gall on a sponge to ease the pain. At 3 P.M. he dies. Joseph
of Arimathea takes his body to his own tomb. Three days pass. The
Harrowing of Hell. He returns on Sunday and stays for 40 days, after
which he ascends (The Ascension).

In
the Passover Plot by Schonfield, it is hypothesized that James,
his brother, may have taken his place on the cross, and that Yeshuah
fled to Japan. The book is the result of much research. Yeshuah was
constantly doing things without the disciples' knowledge. Mary Magdalene
and Judas Iscariot were his inner circle. But a lot of plans were in
motion. The entrance into Jerusalem (Palm Sunday) was all prearranged.
Yehsuah arranged for Judas to turn him in. A reference is made to this
at the Last Supper. As he prays at the Mount of Olives, Yeshuah says,
"Take this cup from me." Judas's kiss on the cheek was unnecessary
because Yeshuah was easily identifiable. He was condemned by the Sanhedron
without saying a word. We know that Pontius Pilate was a vicious sadistic
animal who crucified every chance he got. Crucifixion was a form of
humiliation on a main traveled road. The victims were hung completely
naked, their feet less than 18 inches off the ground. The public was
encouraged to taunt and hurt the victims. They were tied to the cross.
Nails were driven through the hands and feet occasionally. Crucifixion
was mainly death by asphyxiation caused by the victim's inability to
properly breathe when suspended in that position. Yeshuah's brother
James was a physician. Between Judas and James, this was set up. The
narcotic in the sponge made him appear dead. Passover begins at sunset
on the day of the crucifixion. Hebrew law does not allow crucifixion
on any holy day. He appears to die. Jospeh of Arimathea goes to Pilate
asking for "the body of my master," Pilate says, "You
can have the corpse." A spear is thrust in the side of the body
by a Roman guard to make certain that he is dead. They could not have
foreseen the scourging and the spear in the side. Yeshuah could not
have foreseen this. The sightings after his death. Mary Magdalene, his
constant companion for several years, goes to see Yeshuah's body. She
sees a gardener who tells her the body is gone. She thinks the gardener
is Yeshuah? Two disciples are walking to Emmaus and see a man who asks
why they are so glum. They think the guy must have been Yeshuah. Even
in the Upper Room, Yeshuah appears. Doubting Thomas questions him. Schonfield
feels the whole thing was a plan to take the heat off him for a while.

When he dies, the
temple curtain is rent in twain, signifying the opening of the sanctuary.
In the pseudepigraphia, the murder of Zechariah (John the Baptist's
father) led to the same thing. Judas Iscariot dies two different ways
according to the New Testament. No real information is available.

Yeshuah
is looked upon as the sacrificial lamb. In Hebrew, "Pascha"
is the word for Passover. Yeshuah is the Pascal lamb whose blood turns
away the Angel of Death (Sammael). In the Eastern
Orthodox Church, between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, the priests
say to the congregation, "Is Christ risen?" to which the congregation
responds, "Yes, he is risen!" This parallels the ritual greeting
of worshipers of Baal. In the Book of Mark,
the Ascension is discussed. This discussion was not part of the original
text. It was added later. Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday after
the first full moon, after the Vernal Equinox. This date is linked with
fertility ritual and not with the actual date of Christ's resurrection.

Christmas

In Mediterranean,
or more specifically Roman, tradition, the Winter Solstice marked the
beginning of an 8-day celebration called Saturnalia. This celebration
was dedicated to Saturn, the god of fertility, and was meant
to bring back fertility after the harsh winter. Masters and slaves would
change places for the 8-day period and they would exchange gifts. Another
significant day fell during this period. It was the birthday of Mithras,
and it fell on December 25. It is also called the Birth of Sol Invictus,
the "Incomparable Sun" (Natalis Sol Invictus).
Mithras, the sun, had been getting weaker since Summer Solstice. The
Winter Solstice on December 21 symbolized rebirth and new strength.
Symbols of rebirth and fertility were widely used. Evergreen trees were
placed in every house and also in the public square. A sunburst was
placed on the top of the tree to represent Sol himself. All-colored
trinkets were hung on the tree to symbolize forthcoming blooms.

In
Northern Europe, Scandinavian and Celtic traditions intermingled. The
Scandinavians were worshiping their sun god Frey,
a golden beam with a solid gold boar (sunburst). Their view was that
Frey was receding from the earth. On Mother Night (the longest
night of the year) he began to turn around, taking 12 days. Theirs was
a celebration of his impending return. The sun was thought of as a huge
wheel rolling across the sky. Jul Tide (pronounced
"yule tide") means "Season of the Wheel." This was
the 12 day celebration. A huge feast was had. The golden boar was the
symbol of Frey, so a roast pig or boar was served with an apple in the
boar's mouth served whole. Many early English carols reference the boar's
head. Many inns bear the symbol in their name or decor because it is
a symbol of celebration and good will. In Scandinavia, of course, it
was VERY cold at this time of the year. The towns would bring in a "Jul"
log. They chose oak (which was sacred to Thor) to
be the yule log. The whole trunk and roots would be uprooted and set
in the center of the town to burn for 12 days straight. Eventually this
tradition was cut back to 12 hours because of the shortage of wood.
Today, at the end of the 12 hour period, they put out the fire and keep
one small piece of the wood and store it away with the Christmas decorations.
Next year they ignite the new log with the small piece to link last
year's good fortune to the next. Outside, the druids
had their own form of worship. They gathered around the sacred ash tree
(like the World Tree in Scandinavian mythology)
to worship Frey. They hung a golden (painted) apple on the tree to represent
the sun and flowers, and they lit candles. The tree became a very popular
celebration symbol.

Yeshua was probably
born in May. December 25 was the date set in 400 A.D. to coincide with
the Birth of Mithras to overlay previous pagan practice with Christian
ideals. By the Middle Ages, a common decoration was called the "paradise
tree" which was hung ordinary apples (i.e., Eden)
and a Star of Bethlehem on top. In Germany, especially, the tree was
very treasured. In the mid-1500's, Martin Luther was going out to cut
a tree down and he saw stars through the branches and put candles on
the tree emulate this. In Germany, the Christmas tree was put up only
for a day, so the tree was very wet -- not the same fire hazard it is
today to place candles on the branches.

In America, c.
1810, everyone has the trees. In England, c. 1900, Prince Albert wanted
a reminder of Germany and instituted the tradition there as well.

The
Holly & the Ivy

The holly and the
ivy represent the male and the female. Both are plants not damaged by
winter and therefore considered hearty and brave. Ivy is female, it
clings to things. Holly grows up through the snow and is male because
of the phallic spines on the leaves. Druids used little golden sicles
to cut mistletoe off trees, a symbol of friendship although it is actually
a parasite. If two foes met for battle and discovered they were standing
under a tree with mistletoe on it, they would not fight that day. Later
it was used in homes for a kiss on the cheek. You are supposed to take
one berry off for each kiss.

Mexican people
used Poinsettias for a starburst symbol. In the 1800's, the plants were
brought in by Dr. Joel Poinset (ambassador to Mexico).

Saint
Nicholas

Nicholas
was a real man (maybe), but a saint for sure. He was born in 270 A.D.
on the southwest coast of Anatolia (Asia Minor). Orphaned at the age
of 9, he was taken in by a good family. Aware of his good fortune, he
was very generous. He would always help and give to the poor. In the
village lived a nobleman with his three daughters. At some point, the
nobleman went broke. He could not allow anyone to find out. The town
would be devastated. All three daughters were marriageable but they
had no dowry. He asked the servants to leave secretly. They had to cook
and clean. They had to hang clothing inside the house to dry. Nicholas,
at the age of 16 or 17, found out what had befallen the nobleman. He
worked hard for a whole year and took the money and made it into a solid
gold ball. He went to the nobleman's house, threw the gold ball in the
window and ran away. The ball landed in one of the stockings which had
been hung up to dry inside the house. So now the oldest daughter could
get married. After two more years, Nicholas did it again. The final
time, the nobleman went outside to see who was doing this. Nicholas
had saved them. Nicholas left and traveled to Myra (south coast of Anatolia,
further east). There was a storm on the sea while he was on the ship.
He calmed the storm. In Myra, the Bishop died and the priests could
not decide who would replace him. One had a vision. Yahweh
told him that tomorrow morning, the first person to walk into the church
would be the next bishop. Of course it was Nicholas. Nicholas felt unworthy
but the priests insisted. He reigned as bishop for nearly 60 years.
While he was bishop, three young boys went on a trip and didn't return.
The parents went to Nicholas for help. Nicholas went off to find them.
They had stopped at an inn with some money. The innkeeper had murdered
them, chopped them into pieces and put them in a pickling barrel to
hide them. Nicholas brought them back to life whole. Thus his title
as the Patron Saint of Children. He died December 6, 323 A.D.
-> Saint Nicholas Day.

The story of the
golden balls became symbolic of getting help from others -> golden
balls were displayed outside of pawn shops. 1000 A.D. Nicholas became
the Patron Saint of Russia. 1100 A.D. he became the Patron
Saint of the Norman French, too. He became more popular than any
other saint. By 1400, over 500 sings had been written about him. Because
of his generosity, Norman French nuns began giving to the poor on Saint
Nicholas Day (or Eve). This tradition spread through Europe. The Church
used the Alms box. They would open it and distribute from it to the
poor on what was called "Boxing Day." Employers set up boxes
for the same thing which would be given to employees. In Germany, "Christ
Bundles" was the name used for gifts given at this time. Annual
parades included a Chirst child distributing gifts to children. In Holland,
a very economically ingenious country, the Dutch encouraged children
to put money all year into a yule box. At the end of the year, the money
was used to help pay for the roast pig. This evolved into the modern
usage of piggy banks. Saint Nicholas rides in the German parade, tall
and slim in a red bishop's robe. An amalgam of Odin's
Wild Ride, Nicholas' long white beard, Father Christmas with
red robe and red hood (Père Noel) began to emerge. The
Dutch preferred Nicholas and brought him to America when they came.
He had become by that time an elf called Sinte(r) Klaas ->
Santa Claus. He always wore a fur-lined coat, smoked a pipe,
and would ride in a sled pulled by reindeer. When Germans came over,
they contributed the name Krist Kindle (Christ Child) -> Kris
Kringle.

The Santa Claus
figure grew in this country. In Europe, Father Christmas is his counterpart.
As soon as gifts began being given in the same of St. Nick, parents
began bribing their children with it. If you were bad, a little bad
guy would bring you either coal or a bundle of switches to be used all
year long. The dark associate of Father Christmas does not apply to
Santa Claus. Washington Irving in the "Knickerbocker Tales"
discusses the elf Santa Claus who puts presents in stockings just like
St. Nick. Circa 1820, the first breakthrough: Clement Clark Moore wrote
a poem for his daughters called "Twas the Night Before Christmas."
The real name is "A Visit from Saint Nicholas." He introduced
many new elements, i.e., eight named reindeer, etc. Donner is supposed
to be Donder (Thunder). But the Santa image was still an elf with eight
tiny reindeer. During the Civil War, "Harper's Weekly" had
in its employ Thomas Nast (considered by many to be the greatest political
cartoonist ever), who was commissioned to draw a series of Santa Claus
cartoons. After the Civil War, Nast went on to draw Santa Claus. The
publishing company (McLaughlin Brothers Printing Company) experimented
with the color of the leather of Santa's dress. They rested finally
on red. In the early 20th Century, many famous illustrators painted
Santa Claus. But in 1931, the final change took place. A large company
hired Haddon Sundblom (a Scandinavian) to illustrate Santa Claus. He
was delighted, but before his work was complete, his model died. A friend
suggested he use himself as model. For 25 years, he fashioned Santa
after his own face. The company was Coca-Cola. The Coca-Cola Santa Claus
with black belt and boots is now virtually an unchangeable icon of the
Christmas tradition.

In 1941, Rudolph
the Red-Nosed Reindeer was invented by a man working for a radio station.
He wrote a poem and eventually met up with a songweriter who wrote the
music. Gene Autry made the first recording of the song.

Advent
started in the 9th Century, The countdown is started on the Sunday nearest
to Saint Andrews Day (November 30).

Halloween
(Hallow E'en) Hallowed Evening/All Hallows Evening.

In ancient times,
the new day was believed to have begun at sunset. The celebration of
the festival of the dead goes back to prehistoric times. It was a celebration
to commemorate the dead. The time of year was selected because the harvest
is over, the earth is now dying. The dead get to come back to the earth
from sunset to sunrise. They tended not to be in a very good mood. Graveyards
were decorated to put the spirits in a better mood. Colored leaves,
shocks of wheat or grain, dead flowers were all used. Homes were set
up with food and drink for the dead. In Babylonia, this was done once
a month. Indo-Europeans enjoyed this celebration the most. They were
a wild bunch, boisterous and exuberant. The quintessential Indo-Europeans
were the Celts. They divided the year into four quarters, marked by
four major days:

November 1 - Samhain
(pronounces SOW-en), the Day of the Dead, New Year's Day. (The celebration
was only for the dead of this past year who are awaiting going to the
Underworld.) If the dead could take over someone else's body, they could
avoid going to the Underworld. Those who were believed to have already
been taken over were sacrificed to protect the others. Only the evil
dead tried to do this. To avoid the evil ones: (1) The Celts would put
out the hearth fire (a fire which otherwise burned all year round) --
all but one live coal which was carried to a hillside where a bonfire
was laid out and ready to be lit. Then all the villagers would toss
their coals in. The bonfire was meant to frighten the spirits away.
(2) The people of the town dressed up as corpses to frighten the evil
spirits. Good spirits were going to come hom, so homes were decorated.
Meals were prepared. People dressed as spirits of the dead would wander
through the village and ask for food and drink in exchange for a performance.
These wanderers were called mummers. This practice slowly devolved
to teenagers instead of adult. It was then used as a method of getting
revenge. In the 20th Century, smaller children began participating.
Ghouls = eaters of human flesh (corpses). Necrophygy =
the eating of the dead. The church objected to pagan rituals so they
overlaid the festival with Christian principles. In 600 A.D., Pope Gregory
I set November 1 to be All Hallows Day, or All Saints Day,
to commemorate all saints and martyrs known or unknown. c. 900 A.D.,
November 2 was made All Souls Day to commemorate all the dead.

The church began
to campaign against Halloween because it was one of the witches' sabbaths.
Witchcraft is a very ancient and honored profession with both male and
female practitioners. Witches use magic, not the miraculous power of
a god. Egyptians and Sumerians
had gods who knew magic. But witches knew magic better than priests.
c. 1000 B.C., Hebrews outlawed witchcraft. They knew witches could call
up spirits of the dead. c. 300 B.C., witches became associated with
Satan. On the Witches' Sabbath, witches' covens would meet and perform
fertility rituals. They built a bonfire, danced around it, had orgies,
performed "sympathetic magic" for fertility [Christians perverted
this event in the telling, saying they danced around naked and covered
with oil from the fat of murdered infants, helping to invoke Satan.]
Halloween is the one time of the year when Satan can be called up to
ask questions about love. He appears as a huge goat and each of the
witches kisses his behind. Then he has sex with every single witch,
male or female. They then all participate in Witches' Brew (a kind of
porridge made of dead babies, animal heads, insects, urine, excrement).
The common idea of a witch's appearance comes from the puritan dress
of elderly women. The broom is really a besom, a broom made of
twigs used to clean cottages. It is really a phallic symbol (riding
the broom). The witch needs a helper, a "familiar" ( a spirit
occupying the body of a small animal, e.g., black cats, ravens,
owls).

Irish wakes are
a direct descendant of this celebration of the dead. Long ago, there
was a man named Jack -- a very mean and nasty but clever man.
One Halloween, he invoked Satan and somehow tricked him into getting
into a tree. He then carved a cross into the tree so Satan couldn't
leave. He then got him to promise certain things before allowing him
to get down out of the tree. Jack died, and Saint Peter sent him down
to hell. Satan appeared and denied him entrance, and laid a curse on
him to wander the earth forever to lead traveler's astray to their deaths.
Satan hollowed out a turnip and lit an ember in it so travelers would
follow his lantern. The various derivatives of the story are Jack o'
Lantern, Will o' the Wisp, Foxfire, Fairyfire, Fool's Fire (which comes
from the Roman Ignis Fatuus, "the fire of fools").
Nobody traveled at night, which meant you went to an inn as soon as
you saw it was getting dark. Any sign of light would be an easy lure.
(This possibly came from instances of swamp fire caused by methane gas
or static electricity, like Saint Elmo's Fire or Ball Lightning.)

What we know today
as Scandinavia was called Jutland. It was first populated in
10,000 B.C. (meso/neo-lithic period). It was primitive until 3000 B.C.
with the beginning of agriculture. We don't know how it developed. It
was a tenable pursuit at that time. 1500 B.C. Indo-Europeans came in
and eclipsed the population there because they had metal weapons (copper
mostly, some bronze). Indo-European (a language family) is a postulated
language (none found, no words known, no origin known). In the 19th
Century, someone recognized Indian and European similarities in certain
words, investigated this, and discovered that the languages of India,
Persia, and most of Europe all had cognates that were the same or slightly
varied. It was eventually figured out that a mother tongue possibly
began somewhere around the southern steppes of Russia, possibly as faras
Bulgaria. It spread in two directions, East and West. The West is called
the Centum Branch (100 Latin languages). The East is called the Shatum
Branch (100 Sanskrit languages). These are the two major divisions.
The Centum side is vast and varied. This may explain the parallels between
Celtic, Scandinavian, and Indian, mythologies.

Indo-European:

Scandinavian/Germanic

Celtic

Romance

Slavic

Finno-Uguric:

Finnish

Estonian

Magyar: (a difficult
language, 17 case endings for each noun not counting gender and number)
began very far north, the peoples spread across Northern Russia, Manchuria,
China, and Mongolia. They were stopped by the Holy Roman Empire in
the Hungarian Basin where they stayed.

Basque:
the maverick language of Europe. No origin is known. Not very many speakers
eacept in the Pyrenees and in Idaho. The Basques have been in the Pyrenees
as long as we know. They speak Basque, French, and Spanish.

The Scandinavians
(Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic) used to be Norse (Swedish/Norwesgian),
Jutlanders (or Jutes [next to Denmark]), and from Denmark
itself. What originally was the same language family with dialectic
differences evolved into separate languages. The Jutes moved into Britain
and settled into southeast Kent. Jutland is the buffer between Denmark
and Germany.

The
Scandinavians were not Vikings -- Norse, maybe. They are best
known as Vikings, but a Viking is a Scandinavian pirate -- a mariner
who sails to the unknown, but basically a pirate. Circa the 8th Century,
they expanded like crazy. They wanted to colonize, loot, trade, make
war, obtain more land. They were a very wild bunch. They could sail
anywhere. Their boats were designed so that 14 inches of water was sufficient
depth for them to sail. They sailed and plundered on every major river
in Europe. They went to Iceland. Erik the Red thought of calling
Greenland "Iceland" and Iceland "Greenland," despite
their respective characteristics. Those who went to Iceland, stayed
isolated. So today, old Norse text can still be read by Icelanders.
Thus our knowledge of their mythology. Circa 790, they hit Britain and
began to maraud. They made their way all through France because of the
rivers. In 920, Charles the Bold (King of France) gave a large
segment of land to the "Northmen." It became known as Northmansland,
or Normandy. William the Conqueror was of Scandinavian
descent, but the people of Normandy spoke French. The Red People,
the Rus, populated Russia (those who went east). Most
of Russia was populated by Scandinavians. They went to Ireland and founded
the Town of the Black Pool, Dubhlinn, which became
Dublin. Although, Dublin was founded by Norsemen, Northern Irish
was spoken there until the 1200's. The Norse sailed north around Scotland
to get to Ireland. Some settled in northern Scotland. Some went on to
Ireland. They were driven out and fled to the Western Scottish Isles.
Many Scots are not purely Celtic -- the northern and western clans especially.
There was a great deal of intermarriage. Primary Scandinavian stock
(Nordic stock) was tall with light hair, light eyes, and light skin.
Survival of the fittest and selective breeding yielded a large, strong
people -- a very powerful people.

The Move into Scandinavia

The first Scandinavians
(Indo-Europeans) came in 1500 B.C. In 500 B.C.,
iron weaponry developed, and a severe climatic shift took place, destroying
agriculture and herding. Food became short. Circa 100 B.C., they came
in contact with the Romans and learned to value gold, money, ceramics
for cookware and other uses, cloth, fine linen. They didn\'t have much
to trade but fur (from wolves and bears) and slaves (Scandinavians didn't
use them, but the Romans did). The Vikings plundered because of the
values the Romans taught them. They were called Vikings in the late
700's A.D.

The first official
raid was in 789 in Portland Bill, England. The mayor of the town sent
a representative to the Vikings to negotiate. The representative was
beheaded. Vikings traveled 30-40 men per boat. They were never in a
good mood. They traveled across ivy waters in terrible weather. They
had to row. Even their horses were mean.

The
second major raid was an Abbey at the Scottish border on the eastern
coast of England. There are carvings of Vikings coming with both hands
raised, one with an axe and one with a sword. They were big, powerful,
dirty, angry men -- with axes. If met by armed knights, their axes could
remove a horse's head in one blow. They hacked people to bits. They
weren't afraid. They were never sent into battle -- they were always
led. The chief led them at the forefront (not the divine right of kings
system). Men would kill the leader in a heartbeat. They chose the best
fighters to surround the leader. They chose nearly psychotic men to
be the armed guard. These men would go out alone and kill a bear and
wear the skin. Before battle, the armed guard would drink lots of mead
(a liqueur like Drambuie or Irish Mist). But they drank to the point
where they got to be mean drunks, not falling-down drunk. They whipped
themselves into a battle frenzy. They were known as the Bear Shirts
or the Bear Skirts -> Berserk. They were called
Berserkers. There were only a handful of these men per Viking
army.

Battle
Frenzy

It is a worldwide
phenomenon that various kinds of people do various things to themselves
to become invincible in battle. The Hashashin (the origin of
the word "assassin") in the East smoked hashish before killing
a man even though they would die. The Celts decoratedthemselves
like wild men and went into battle naked. In Indo-China, warrior took
opium to numb themselves and wrapped wet bamboo around their testicles.
When it dried, it shrank, causing them great pain. This practice is
what is known as "running amok." In battle, these men would
behave in a crazed and fearless fashion, making them all the more dangerous.
That's why the .45 was invented in 1910. A successful weapon could not
just wound; it had to knock the enemy down. The Berserkers are responsible
for a large part of the Viking reputation. They terrified the people
of Europe. One reason for their fierceness and cruelty is that Scandinavian
religion was very pessimistic. They had virtually nothing to live for.
The best fate possible was to die heroically. The worst fate was what
was called a Straw Death, or "to die on the straw bed,"
i.e., to die in one's sleep. This attitude is similar to that
of the Old American West: "A cowboys gotta die with his boots on."
Much of the attitudes of Britain and Northern Europe comes from this.
They used understatement a lot. The British still love to use it. In
an Olde English poem called "The Battle of Mauldin," in describing
a king's bitter defeat, it says, ". . . and that king had very
little cause to rejoice." If captured, they might not die bravely.
They died sneering at their captors. They had to prove their hatred.
Another use of understatement appears in one of the sagas: "Those
new broad-plated boar spears are very popular these days."

They lived a hard
life, but had a strong sense of humor, and a strong sense of pathos
and love. They loved to laugh more than anything. This explains the
presence of humor in Scandinavian mythology.

Pronunciation:

j = /y/ (as
in "fjord")

ei = /i/

vowels are the
same as in the rest of Europe

These stories are
primarily from Iceland.

Myths
of Scandinavia The
Creation Story

In the beginning,
Muspelheim is in the South. Niflheim is in the North.
In between is the great spring Hvergelmir. Hvergelmir is located
in Ginungagap, a chasm between Muspelheim and Niflheim. Ginungagap
means "gap of gaps." Niflheim is nothing but ice. Muspelheim
is nothing but fire. Hvergelmir is a huge boiling spring of water slowly
melting the ice of Niflheim. Surtri is a proto-god
in Muspelheim. Surtri is the name of fire deified. Niflheim is the largest
area (Archetype: Most creation stories
begin with a body of chaotic water -- in Scandinavia the water is frozen.).
The action of the ice melting creates a giant called Ymir. [Note:
Male giants are pretty much inherently evil in Scandinavian myth.] Ymir
emerges from the ice and is hungry. A second creature also emerges:
Audhumla, a cow, which provides Ymir with milk. Audhumla licks
the ice for salt, and as she licks she revelas more beings. From Ymir
come more creatures as well. From his legs (loins), a race of giants
is created. Man and woman are created from his armpit. Audhumla uncovers
the head of a proto-god (basically a god who comes before the ones we
want to talk about -- a god who precedes the pantheon of gods in the
mythology). He is called Buri which means "He Who Is Born."
He comes out of the ice and takes a giantess for a wife. Audhumla then
finds Borr (whose name means the same thing as Buri). He, too,
takes a giantess for a wife. They give birth to some gods -- the first
three.

Borr
fathers Odin, Vili, and Ve. Odin goes on to become
king of the gods. Odin, Vili, and Ve recognize that Ymir is evil and
begin a war against him and the giants. They kill Ymir, and his blood
pours out and floods everything. It drowns the humand and all of the
giants except one couple: Bergelmir and his wife escape in a
boat. Later, the races of giants give the gods much trouble because
of this escape. When the blood subsides, Odin, Vili, and Ve roll the
body into Ginungagap and cut it up and create the universe. (This adheres
to the archetype: Gods create the universe
from the dead body of some huge being. The archetype appears in Babylonian
myth, Chinese, African, etc.) His skull becomes the sky. His bones
become rocks. His flesh becomes the earth. His blood becomes the oceans,
lakes, etc. His hair becomes vegetation. Odin, Vili, and Ve find maggots
in the corpse. From the maggots they create elves and dwarves.
There are light elves and dark elves. Dark elves are sometimes seen
as being the same as dwarves. The skull of Ymir has to be held up by
the sky. They use four dark elves for this job: Nordri, Sudri,
Austri, and Oestri -- the four directions. Odin, Vili,
and Ve take a walk along the lakeshore. At some point, they stop, and
from two trees, they create man and woman to tend the earth: Ask
(the ash tree = male) and Embla (the elm or elder tree = woman).

The World Tree,
Yggdrasil (an ash tree), is the Universe. It has three roots.
Each of the roots reaches into a different land. The three lands are
Niflheim (home of the dead -- straw deaths
only), Jotunheim (home of the Frost Giants -- Jotuns are
the enemies of the gods), and Asgard (home of
the gods). The Aesir are the gods.["Heim"
= home. "Gard" = place (e.g., garden).]

Beneath each of
the tree roots is a well. The well of the root of Jotunheim is Jot,
or the Well of the Wyrds. It is home to the three Wyrd
Sisters. ["Wyrd" = fate, doom] The sisters are also called
the Norns. One spins the string of fate, one weaves it, and one
cuts it. One faces the past, one the present, and the other the future.
The well of Asgard, is Mimir's Well. Mimir
is the god who guards the well of knowledge of the future. He won't
let anyone drink from it. The well of Niflheim is the spring of Hvergelmir.
The only way into Asgard is to go across a bridge called Bifrost
(the rainbow). The Aesir don't want Frost Giants in their city. So there
is a gate at the end of the bridge made of Ymir's
eyebrows. Somewhere near the middle of the tree is the land where the
humans live. This land is called Midgard (Middle Earth). Alfheim
is the home of the elves. Svartalfheim is the home of the dark
elves ["svart" as in "swarthy"]. They are thought
to live underground.

In the branches
and eating the leaves are various deer. Perched up on a branch is an
eagle which can look out over the universe and see everything going
on. On the eagle's forehead sits a hawk who reports news to Odin. Wrapped
around the roots is a serpent called Nidhug who gnaws at the
roots. If he gnaws through and the tree topples, everything will collapse
and be destroyed. Running up and down Yggdrasil is a squirrel called
Ratatosk, a mischief maker who talks to the eagle and talks to
him through the snake, lying to both and telling each what terrible
things the other says about him. His name means "rat tooth."
The deer are not malevolent, but they could hurt the tree. In Scandinavia,
certain animals are looked on with and without favor. The bear is respected.
Snakes are despised. Birds of prey are especially popular. Wolves have
a checkered career -- mostly evil. Squirrels are looked on with humor.
The characters are almost always male.

The
Gods of Scandinavia

Vili
and Ve pretty much disappear. But Odin never
disappears. He becomes the king of the gods, a just war god. Only in
German and Roman myth do war gods actively urge their people into war
and delight in it. Odin is too wise to urge people into war. People
are terrified of him. He is looked on with superstitious awe. The battle
cry is almost always to Odin.

There is a set
of races among deified entities. There were once two different races
of gods, but they then merged and lived in peace. (For example, Hera
and Zeus both are storm gods and sky gods -- marriage of the matriarchy
and the patriarchy.) The Aesir (who live in Asgard)
are war gods. The Vanir (who live in Vanaheim) are fertility
and agricultural gods -- more peaceful. The two races go to war. Eventually,
they decide to call a truce. Usually, some strong symbolism of the truce
is needed. Each set of gods lined up and spat into a cauldron, creating
Kvassir, the potion of poetic inspiration. (Also, when personified
Kvassir is the God of Ultimate Wisdom.) The dwarves steal it at one
point. They decide to exchange live-in hostages (emissaries) to guarantee
a peaceful existence. The Aesir send Honir, who is tall, handsome,
and strong, and Mimir, who is short, unattractive, and smart,
to Vanaheim. The Vanir are pleased with Honir who is sensible and gives
good solutions to problems. The Vanir go to him for advice. Mimir is
called away at one point, and Honir is unable to help them. They are
outraged when they realize that Mimir is the brain behind the mouth.
When Mimir returns, they decapitate him in anger and send his head back
to Odin in Asgard. Odin liked Mimir and by magic brings the head back
to life. He places the head next to the well of
future knowledge and wisdom. Mimir thus becomes the guardian of
the well.

Odin
is wild, furious, angry, almost mad with a wild kind of unleashed fury.
The All Father, the Val Father (God or Father of the Valiant
Dead). He knew he was king of the gods and must rule wisely and with
foreknowledge. He first went to Mimir to ask for
a drink from the well so he would have foreknowledge. Mimir refused
at first. He finally relented but for a heavy price: one of Odin's eyes.
So Odin took out a dagger and pried an eye out and threw it into the
well. Thus, Odin knows the long-range future. His right eye is missing
and he doesn't wear a patch over the socket. Odin also knew that he
needed ultimate wisdom. So he took a spear and stabbed himself and hung
himself on a tree for nine days as a corpse. At the end of that time,
he turned himself back into a god again and had attained the wisdom
which he sought. (A possible manifestation of the crucifixion
of Christ? The enlightenment also parallels Buddha.)
The tree is called the Hanging Tree or the Gallows Tree.
From this event comes the phrase "riding the Gallows Tree"
which refers to hanging -- sometimes as a sacrifice to Odin. These are
the two forms of self-sacrifice Odin had to go through in order to rule
well. Annually, toward mid-winter (December), Odin goes out on a hunt
with friends (other gods) and dogs. He makes a tremendous amount of
noise as he rides across the sky. This is called the Wild Hunt
or the Wild Ride. If you see it, you will die. It is good luck
to hear it, but a human is never to look upon it. Odin is a vigorous
man with a long, grey beard (50-60 years old). He is powerful, with
armor and a long cloak. When on Earth, he wears a floppy hat which covers
his missing eye. He is a sky god, so the cloak is blue or black. He
carries a spear, called the Invincible Spear. He has, as does each god,
his own hall with a throne only for him. From there, he can see almost
everything, yet he has information brought back to him constantly by
the eagle and hawk who sit high in the branches of the World
Tree and by two ravens who perch either on his shoulder or on the
back of his throne. The ravens are Thought and Memory.
At his feet sit two wolves or dogs. They do not have names. Both wolves
and ravens are associated with warfare and death. No mild beings are
associated with Odin. He is a fearsome battle god.

Asgard

Heimdall
is a god chosen for his talents to be the guard at the gate on Bifrost
bridge. He stands at the gate and is brilliant in white armor (steel
armor highly polished like a mirror). His teeth are gold. He has a great
sword. He is a fierce warrior and very handsome. His talents are that
he can see 200 miles in complete darkness and that he can hear the grass
growing. Three gods vied for the position, but Heimdall's talents secured
it for him. Once a giant made a deal with an air spirit who was to sneak
into Asgard to listen to the Gods' plans and tell the giant. Air spirits
are invisible. The air spirit succeeded and was listening in to Odin
and the Gods. Heimdall came in and said, "I have to resign because
I have somehow sensed that something got past me and I di not stop it."
So Odin magically freezes the air spirit, who is thus nabbed. They force
an oath from the air spirit never to come again. And Heimdall is persuaded
to stay at his post. Heimdall carries a sword and the Gjallar
horn. When a god comes to the gate, he blows the horm softly. If anyone
tries to overwhelm him, he will blast it and get help immediately.

Tyr
is the bravest of all the Gods. He is the God of Battle. Once he was
King of the Gods, but he was later relegated to a secondary position.
He is a very powerful warrior. Anytime something REALLY dangerous has
to be done and all the Gods are afraid, Tyr does it.

Loki
is the Trickster of the Gods. He doesn't get along with Heimdall. Originally,
he was the God of Fire. He has fiery red hair and is extremely funny
and witty. He would do anything to make people laugh. He is half giant
but has been approved by Odin. Eventually, his pranks devolved into
practical jokes with a streak of viciousness. He devolved further into
a trickster, a figure found in many cultures . The trickster amuses
himself at the expense of others. His jokes often backfire. He is arrogant,
funny, but not usually popular. For example, the American Indian Trickster
is the coyote (as in Wile E. Coyote). He steals and is always caught
and has to make restitution. Odin or Thor can always make Loki tell
the truth. He has several wives and children. Loki is always aiming
at the destruction of the Gods. Heimdall aims to protect the Gods.

Donder
(also Donar) is the God of Thunder, who becomes Thor,
the Storm God. He is the most colorful of the Gods. He almost always
travels with Loki. Loki is a shape-shifter, as is
Odin. Thor is a size-shifter. He is terribly heavy
and hot, and he cannot cross the Bifrost bridge.
He must wade through the North Sea and come around the long way. He
is a storm god, so he has fiery red hair and a bright red bristling
beard (lightning). He has a red nose -- he is an enormous drinker (lightning).
His eyes are always bloodshot (same reason). His voice is low, gruff
and loud (thunder). he rides in a chariot pulled by two goats (rams),
one of which travels with a limp. Hung on his chariot are pots and pans
which, make the noise of thunder. The serious limp suggests the jagged
path of lightning. Thor always has (1) a belt, which is heavy, powerful,
and wide -- the tighter he pulls it the stronger he gets, and (2) a
steel gauntlet (battle glove -- leather with steel plates sewn on) which
is used with his (3) hammer called Mjollnir,
"The Destroyer." The hammer is a lightning bolt -- Thor's
Hammer. Thos ir not a mental wizard. He is not a deep thinker, not a
contemplator. His philosophy is blast with the hammer and then ask what's
going on. He has a terrible temper (flash storms). He is a man of action,
the strongest of the Gods. But he is also gentle at times (like a rainstorm).
Loki is unpredictable as fire would be. Thor is married to Sif,
a beautiful goddess with LONG, gold-blond hair. She is not very active,
but gorgeous. Another feature of Thor's Hammer is that when he turns
it around and taps with the other end, it can bring the dead to life.
Whatever he hits is killed. He is the Gods' chief protection against
the Giants. Everyone is afraid of Thor's wrath. He is unstoppable.

Frey,
God of the Sun (solar deity). Frey and Freya are
twins, brother and sister. They are Vanir. Frey
is also the god of warm spring and summer showers. He is put in charge
of Alfheim (home of the light elves) because
of his characteristics. The elves obey him. Frey has a sword. He shines
brilliant gold. So does his sword, which will fight by itself and magically
defeat any enemy when he draws it. Not only does his gold color represent
the sun, it also represents the golden grain which grows because of
the sun's rays. Since he is the God of the Sun, at a certain time of
the year he is called Jul. The sun is though
of as a wheel in the sky. "Jul" means wheel. The wheel would
roll away and return beginning on Midwinter's Day. This is called Yuletide
-- the season of the wheel. It is a month of rejoicing. The Scandinavians
would take wheels of dry wood to hill tops, set them alight with fire,
and then roll them down into ponds. This took place at Winter's Solstice.

Frey was Vanir
and therefore a foreigner in Asgard. One day,
he even went to sit on Odin's throne because he
didn't know any better. Frey looked far north and saw the most beautiful
woman he had ever seen. She was the daughter of a giant. Her name was
Gerda. Frey wanted to marry her but was too shy to ask, so he
sat around and moped instead. Finally, his assistant Skyrnir
came to him to find out what was bothering him. Skyrnir said, "I'll
go in your place and woo her, but it will cost you your magic sword."
Frey consented, blinded by love. Skyrnir took Frey's image (i.e.,
he looked like him) to court Gerda who wasn't interested. Finally he
said, "If you don't consent, your body will have no more heat.
Your body will wither and dry up and you will be an ugly old woman at
whom no one will look." So she agreed. She said she'd be there
in nine days. The two were married. The sword was lost. Gerda = Erda
which means "earth." The metaphor represents the sun wooing
the earth with warmth followed by nine months of winter.

Freya,
the twin sister of Frey. She is considered the Goddess
of Love. She is strikingly gorgeous. Ans she is made even more beautiful
when she wears her Brising necklace which was made by dwarves
out of the twinkling of the stars. This is how she got it: The dwarves
made it and went to her and showed it to her. She is very egocentric
(archetypal trait of love goddesses) and wants it very badly. The three
ugly dwarves demand that she has to have sex with all three of these
ugly dwarves. She says, "What?! -- All right." And she does
it. (Having seduced every male god in Asgard and
Vanaheim, Loki accuses her
of leaping like a nannygoat from bed to bed.) Freya is also the Goddess
of War, because love and hate were seen as basically the same emotion
just redirected. After a battle, she comes down and leads the Valkyries
(beautiful women flying through the air on horses), and they take the
spirits back to Valhalla and splits them with
Odin. Freya and come and go from the Underworld
without any problem. For a while she was married to Odur (a traveler),
but he left her and never returned. She was devastated and wept copiously.
Some say she still weeps and the tears fall to Earth where they land
they sometimes turn stones soft or turn them to gold. If her tears land
in the sea, they turn stones to amber. She has the falcon cloak
(or "cape" or "garb"). It is made of falcon feathers.
The cloak enables the wearer to fly. She rides in a chariot drawn by
cats (an interesting symbol). ALL the Frost Giants lust after her.

Frigga
is a goddess closely associated with Frey and Freya.
No one is sure after which of the three "Friday" is named.
Frigga and Freya may be alteregos. Frigga is the Goddess of Cloudy Skies
(not of Vanir but Aesir).
She is always wearing either a black robe or a white robe. Sometimes
Odin is displayed in a black robe. Sometimes the
robe has stars on it. This could be associated with the current concept
of a wizard's robe. The robe is the night sky because Odin is a storm
god. Frigga is Odin's wife. She is Queen of the Gods. She has knowledge
of the future but WILL NOT tell. She is very beautiful, but she is not
thought of the same way as Freya. She has a maternal and wifely kind
of beauty. Freya is the Goddess of War and Love. Frigga does love beautiful
jewelry and clothing. She wears in her tiara plumes of heron, symbolizing
silence (this suggests her refusal to reveal the future). She wears
a ring of keys at her belt (like a jailer) symbolizing her role as housewife
(a standard Scandinavian symbol). Females ran the household in complete
dominance -- Frigga is the patron goddess of housewives and mothers.
Because of this, she is almost always alone, as wives tended to be.
She sits at a spinning wheel, spinning alone for long hours in the Hall
of Mists. (In the night sky, what we know as the Belt of Orion,
is known to the Sacndinavians as "Frigga's Spinning Wheel.")
It is not a terribly joyful life. And yet she has her own large hall
to which the spirits of certain people go when they die. It is the hall
which houses the spirits of true lovers, and they are never parted.
Frigga has other names: Jörd /yerd/ = Earth; Bertha
or Ertha. She does control some aspects of fertility. Another
of her names is Eastra /ay ahs' tra/ = spring (origin of our
word "Easter").

Three
gods came from Vanir: Frey,
Freya, and their father Njord. He bore his
children on his sister, and the Aesir did not like
that very much. It makes the Vanir look more primitive, thus making
the Aesir superior. Njord is associated with the ocean and shores. He
is the God of Offshore Waters and the Winds. His palace is on the seashore.
(Most temples to him are also on the seashore.) Njord is the patron
god of fishermen and commerce/merchants. Under Njord's control are ALL
ships entering and leaving port, thus all trade belongs to him. In addition,
he is the God of Summer because climates are most temperate near the
seashore. He is portrayed as a handsome young man wearing a short green
tunic and a crown of seashells and seaweed. The Scandinavians prayed
to Njord to stop storms and for a good harvest. Njord eventually marries
Skadi. She is the Goddess of Scandinavian Weather.

Idun,
Goddess of Eternal Youth. She has a large basket of apples known as
Idun's Apples or the Apples of Immortality.
Annually, the Gods eat from her basket to stay young. Her basket is
eternally full.

Aegir
is considered a proto-god, but he is also the
God of the Sea -- an ancient god who is God of the Sea. He dwells in
the sea and is old. He makes great storms and tempests and hurricanes
in the ocean as he pleases. He takes great pleasure in sinking shiips.
He sees sailors as intruders. His major epithet
is "The Concealer." He hides ships forever. The ocean is called
"Aegir's Brewing Vat." Like the sea gods of other cultures,
he has sway over whatever goes on in the ocean.

Ran
is Aegir's wife and sister. Her names means "robber."
She is not quite as "nice" as Aegir. She likes to entice mariners
and then snares them with her net. She then slowly draws them down to
the bottom of the sea and drowns them, robbing their families. When
someone dies at sea, Ran is considered a Goddess of Death (at sea).
She has a weakness: she LOVES gold. Many mariners in a storm would throw
gold overboard to appease her. She is called "Mother of the Nine
Waves" (which are thought of as daughters). It was popular to believe
that waves came in groups of nine. Nine is thought to be a magic number
in many cultures.

Nicors
(or Nixies) lived in the sea also. They were mermen. Some people
believe "Nicor" is the source of "Old Nick," who
is Satan. Mermaids are called Undines. They
sit on the rocks and sing when sailors steer closer to rocks, causing
them to crash (similar to the Sirens of the Greek), and everyone
would drown. They are not really evil. But they are not benevolent.
They were just irresistible when they sang. Lorelei is a German
derivative, but there is only one and she is only on the Rhine. Sailors
were notoriously non-swimmers, so crashes meant doom for them.

Vali
- He is sort of a personification of the returning sun, an archer god
(representative of the sun's long rays)

Loki
had a wife named Angur-Boda ("Anger-Bode," an omen
of evil), a giantess. Loki and Angur-Boda decide to have children. The
first child is male. They name him Fenrir. He is a wolf pup who
grows unbelievably quickly and gets to be very large (Fenris wolf).
He is able to speak. The Gods are afraid of him because of his size.
Tyr is the only god brave enough to feed him. Thor
isn't around. The Gods call a council. They decide to use godly wiles
to trick him. They go to Fenrir, oohing and aahing about how strong
he is. They say, "I'll bet if we tied you up with this incredibly
thick rope you couldn't break it." Fenrir replies, "I could."
So the Gods say, "Let's try it." Fenrir is suspicious but
he gives in. He breaks the ropes. The Gods bring a chain. The same thing
happens. He breaks every link. Odin turns to Loki
and says, "You brought him in -- you get him out." Loki knows
that Odin is serious. [Often a trickster is the third in a set -- he
resolves the problem in a third try.] Loki goes to the dark elves (or
dwarves) to make a magic cord for him. He brings it back. This silken
fine slim magic cord is made of the roots of a mountain, the teeth of
a chicken, the sound of a cat walking, the beard of a woman, the unfulfilled
desires of a bear (none of these items exist). Fenrir suspects it is
a trick when the Gods bring this next cord to him. He will let them
tie him only if one of them will put his right hand in the wolf's mouth.
Tyr volunteers. Fenrir is unable to escape. He bites off Tyr's sword
hand. Odin throws him, bound, into Niflheim.
Tyr does not get his hand back. (The wrist is known as the "wolf's
joint.")

Loki
and Angur-Boda try again. They give birth to Jormungand. He is
a big snake who grows at the same unbelievable rate as Fenrir. He has
a foul disposition. He knows about Fenrir's plight. He is horribly venomous
and mad all the time. Just in time, Thor comes home to Asgard. He takes
one look at Jormungand, loses his temper, grabs him, and throws him
out of Asgard. Jormungand lands in the cosmic ocean. He is still growling.
He completely surrounds the universe. He is biting his tail. He is called
the World Serpent. He never forgave Thor. The two are forever
in enmity (as are Loki and Heimdall and Odin and Fenrir).

Loki
and Angur-Boda try again. They have a normal daughter called Hel
(or Hela). She grows into a beautiful woman. But only half of
her. She is split vertically. The one half is a beautiful woman, the
other is a dead putrefying corpse. She is not an evil being, but she
is not really popular. She resents her unpopularity and chooses to leave
Asgard. She goes to Niflheim and becomes Queen
of the Land of the Dead (only those who died a straw
death), whence comes our term "Hell." She has complete
power in the Underworld. This is a standard archetype
in all cultures.

Treasures
of the Gods

One morning, Sif
and Thor wake up. Thor is aghast. Sif's hair has
been chopped off and is gone. He is furious and hunts Loki
down and drags him into the court of Odin in the
presence of all the Gods. Loki promises to replace Sif's hair and make
it better than before if he is freed. Odin adds that he must also give
something extra for himself and Frey. So Loki makes
the promise and goes off to the dwarves. He has a friend there named
Dvalin who is a master smith. Dvalin agrees to help. So a few
days go by and Loki returns with gifts for the Gods. He has spun gold
finer and softer than Sif's hair had been and far more beautiful. For
Odin, he brings the Invincible Spear Gungnir. For Frey, he brings
Skidbladnir, a boat which will fold up and fit into Frey's pouch
but when opened can get large enough to carry all the Gods. It can travel
over water, earth, or sky. The boat represents a cloud. Loki becomes
very arrogant about how grand the treasures are. A dwarf nearby named
Brock hears Loki bragging and is very irritated. So he challenges
Loki that his cousin Sindri can make even better treasures. Loki,
in his arrogance and stupidity, wagers his head that Sindri cannot.
Sindri is furious with Brock. They go to Sindri's forge. Brock, working
on the bellows, MUST NOT miss a beat if the magic is to work. Loki is
beginning to worry. He turns himself into a gadfly and sneaks into the
forge to see what's going on. Loki stings Brock and it really hurts
and blood flows but he knows it will ruin the magic if he hesitates.
Sindri withdraws a ring called Draupnir which is to be for Odin.
(Rings and arm bracelets were very popular with the Scandinavians. The
leader in battle was called the "ring giver" because he would
distribute the booty.) It was a solid gold ring from which, on every
ninth day, eight more rings would drop off it. (Compare to the ring
Wagner used in his opera and the one Tolkien used in his stories.) Sindri
and Brock go back to work on Frey's gift. Loki stings Brock's cheek
but fails to interrupt him. Sindri draws out of the forge Gullin-Bursti,
a large living wild boar made of solid gold. (The name means "Golden
Bristle." It represents the rays of the sun and sheafs of golden
grain. It also represents the sun itself.) And now to make something
for Thor. Loki desperately stings Brock above his eye. Blood flows into
his eye and he pauses to wipe it away. The product from the forge is
flawed. It is Mjollnir the Hammer. It is a large mallet with
a small handle because of Brock's pause. The Gods are pleased and Mjollnir
is judged to be far superior to Sif's hair, so Loki loses but he disappears.
Thor goes after him. Thor finds him and drags him back kicking and screaming.
Brock wants that head. This marks the ONLY time Thor ever has a good
idea: Thor says he can take the head but he can't damage the neck because
that wasn't part of the bargain (as in Shakespeare's "The Merchant
of Venice": "A pound of flesh, but not one drop of blood.").
So Brock takes a big needle and a thong and sews up Loki's lips. And
it takes a long time and much suffering for Loki to get the thong out
again. [Note: Mjollnir. The Scandinavians wore an upside down gold hammer
around their necks. Christians copied this tradition with the crucifix.
The hammer represented strength and protection, etc.]

One day, Odin,
Loki, and Honir are out traveling
somewhere (Loki usually travels with Thor; Honir
is not usually an active god). They didn't bring food, and so they have
to forage. They make camp. They find a herd of oxen. They select one
and slaughter it and put it on a spit over the fire. They wait till
it's done and take it off the fire to find that it's still raw. They
put it back on the fire and wait again. Once again, it's still raw.
They realize it must be magic. They look around. They are sitting near
a large tree. An eagle is sitting in the tree. He has particularly bright
eyes (which indicates that he is a shape shifter). The eagle comes down
and talks to them. He says, "Yes, I am responsible, and if I wish,
it will never cook. It will only cook if I can have as much as I want."
The gods are so hungry that they agree. So the eagle allows the ox to
cook quite quickly. The eagle begins bolting down the meat. It is most
provoking. Loki grabs a big stick and pokes at the eagle's underbelly.
The stick sticks to the eagle and Loki's hands won't come off the stick.
The eagle, angry, takes off and Loki dangles, terrified, at the end
of the stick. He flies so high that Loki can barely see the earth. The
eagle threatens to release Loki if he doesn't agree to ANYTHING. Loki
agrees. The eagle is really a Frost Giant named Thjassi. He really
wants Idun's apples. He makes Loki swear to bring
them to him. The eagle returns Loki and leaves knowing that Loki must
keep his word. Loki goes home and doesn't tell anyone what has happened.
One day, he goes to Idun and says he has found something as great as
her apples. He asks her to come and see. Idun is never separated from
her apples. She goes with Loki out of Asgard.
The eagle takes Idun and her apples away. Loki returns to Asgard. Within
a day, all the Gods begin to age rapidly. They search frantically for
Idun and her apples but cannot find her. Someone remembers seeing Idun
and Loki leaving Asgard. Loki must go and bring Idun and her apples
back. Thjassi owns a cloak of eagle feathers which turns him into an
eagle. Loki borrows Freya's cloak of falcon
feathers and does the same. He flies away. He gets to Thjassi's home.
Thjassi is out for the moment but is due back shortly. Loki begins changing
Idun's shape. First, he turns Idun into a little grain and puts her
out in the fields with all the grain. Thjassi has great power and he
knows and goes to find her. Loki turns Idun into a small nut and grasps
her in one talon and the apples in the other and flies away. Thjassi
sees them leave and grabs his robe of eagle feathers and goes after
them. Larger birds are faster, but smaller birds are quicker. The eagle
gains on the falcon. Loki sees Thjassi. Heimdall
is watching from the gate and alerts the gods. He sees the eagle chasing
the falcon. The Gods come up with a plan. Everyone grabs firewood. They
throw it in the courtyard. They don't light it until Loki enters Asgard.
Thjassi flies straight into the bonfire and is instantly destroyed.
The Gods become young again with the help of Idun's apples.

One
day in Asgard, a giantess named Skadi came to the gate. She is
the daughter of the dead Thjassi. She is allowed
in. She says she is furious that the Gods have murdered her father.
They feel badly. So they offer her a husband from the Gods -- a kind
of potluck husband. She must wear a blindfold and must choose her husband
by his feet. So she sees a handsome pair of feet and chooses Njord.
She is disappointed, but they get married. She wants to live in her
father's home which is far to the north and very cold. Njord refuses.
They go to his palace and live there for three months. Skadi hates it.
So they go to her palace. Njord lives there for nine months, but they
finally break up. This explains the three months of summer and the nine
months of winter in Scandinavia. [At one point, Skadi had just wanted
vengeance. The Gods say if they can make her laugh, she must forgive
them. But no one can make her laugh. Then Loki succeeds.
He takes a goat and leashes himself by the testicles to the goat's neck.
The goat jumps around. She laughs. Her whole name is Skadi Naja
-> Scandinavia. She is the Goddess of Scandinavian Weather.

When
there was no great wall around Asgard, the city was vulnerable to attack
from the outside. Snorri is a giant who is an architect. He has
a black stallion named Svadilfari. He offers to build a wall. What
he wants in return is Freya. The Gods don't like
it, and Freya isn't around to decide one way or another. Loki
says, "We'll just set a time limit too short for him to meet."
The time limit is one year. Snorri agrees furiously. Freya says she won't
marry him anyway. Svadilfari is unbelievably capable of carrying huge
quantities of brick and mortar very quickly. The giant and the stallion
work together. After a few months, the wall looks to be almost done. When
three days are left, the Gods know Snorri is going to make it. Freya still
refuses. Loki is responsible to set things aright. When there is one day
left, Loki changes himself into a beautiful mare with red hair. Svadilfari
falls in love and chases after her. Snorri is panic-stricken. He knows
he cannot finish without his horse. The sun sets and he fails. The Gods
say, Sorry, no marriage. Snorri reveals that he is a giant and Thor kills
him. [Or they knew all along and Thor kills him anyway.] Loki doesn't
come back for a long time. He then returns leading a young colt and gives
it (his son) to Odin. The colt runs very quickly because
it has eight legs. It is named Sleipnir. It becomes Odin's mount.
There is a famous riddle: "What is it that goes like the wind, has
ten legs, and three eyes?" The answer: "Odin riding Sleipnir."
Sleipnir is VERY fast. [A scholar once theorized that Odin is a kind of
God of Death. When one dies, the corpse is carried on a bier with four
men bearing it. Odin represents the corpse riding the bier with eight
legs.]

The
Theft of Kvassir

The Vanir
and the Aesir decide to call a truce, thus they
make kvassir. The kvassir was stolen by two dwarves.
They add honey to it and divide it into three smaller cauldrons. They
want to hide it. They put the cauldrons in a cave guarded by Gunnlod,
a daughter of the giant Suttung. She is in the cave and they
seal the cave entrance. Odin is angry. He decides
it's time for him to do something himself. He comes to Earth disguised
as a human being: a stranger named Bollverk ("doer of evil,"
"worker of evil"). Suttung's cousin lives near the cave. The
cousin has many men (nine of them) working for him because it is harvest
time. Bollverk wanders along the road and stops and watches them at
work. They are all complaining because their scythes are so dull (scythes
were made of iron and became dull very quickly). Bollverk starts talking
to them. He says he has a stone which will sharpen their scythes and
make them razor sharp. He sharpens them. Now they all want the stone.
Bollverk says okay and throws the stone up in the air, catch as catch
can. Grasping for the stone, they all lop off each other's heads. Suttung
is now left with no workers. They have been done in by their own greed.
Bollverk says, "All your men are dead -- let me do the work."
He harvests everything very quickly. He gets Suttung to show him where
the kvassir cave is. So they go to the cave, and Suttung owes Bollverk
a great debt. Bollverk makes Suttung begin boring into the rock until
he gets through. Odin plans to slither through as a snake. Odin doesn't
trust Suttung. He tells him to blow in the hole to see if it's all the
way through. Odin knows the hole is incomplete. He drills all the way
through. Odin is too fast. He gets in as a snake and then turns himself
into a very charming handsome young fellow and meets Gunnlod, who is
fairly attractive. For three days, they become "quite close."
Having seduced her for three days straight, he says he is thirsty and
needs a drink. With the honey, the kvassir has become a fermented drink,
like mead. Gunnlod tells Odin he can drink whatever
he can hold. He drains all three vats and slips back out. He turns into
an eagle and carries the kvassir back to Asgard
in his mouth. Suttung sees him go. He grabs his cloak of eagle feathers.
It's bonfire time again. Suttung falls for it
and is destroyed. Odin spits the kvassir back out. As he flew, a few
drops fell. Those who drank of it became hack poets -- poetasters.
Those who drank of the real poetic inspiration became great poets. Nine
months later, Gunnlod gives birth to Bragi, the poet and musician
of the Gods (in Asgard). He has one disadvantage: that he grows old.
He is portrayed as an old man with white hair and a white beard and
a gold harp. He marries Idun. Bragi has a fascinating
ritual at yuletide. Whole families would gather together
and the men would begin the ritual. The eldest man would start with
a schooner of mead and make the sign of the hammer (like the cross)
with his hand. He would then tell of what great deeds if valor he had
planned for the coming year. He would then drink the entire schooner
of mead (called a Bragaful after Bragi). This would go all the
way around the table, each man trying to top the others. This is the
origin of the term "to brag." They kept going around the table
until everyone passed out.

Aegir's
Kettle

One day, Aegir
invites the Gods to a feast. They are pleased. But he says he doesn't
have a big enough cauldron to brew beer for their feast. There is a
giant called Hymir who owns an extremely famous fabulous kettle
(The Kettle of Hymir) which is one mile deep. Thor
and Tyr set out to get it. They go to Hymir's house.
He's not at home. But his wife is there. She worries for them when they
tell her their intent. She has them hide under some overturned kettles
off to one side. Hymir comes in saying, "I smell Gods." She
calms him down (as in Jack and the Beanstalk) and introduces
Thor and Tyr. Hymir is a little drunk by this time, so he is able to
play host. He has a prize herd of oxen -- big ones. He kills three for
a feast. Thor eats two of them. Hymir is dismayed. He says they can
borrow his vat but he wants Thor to accompany him fishing the next day.
Hymir gives Thor no bait. He says, "Get your own." Thor picks
the biggest prize ox in the herd and lops off its head for bait. Hymir
is both irritated and frightened. Hymir makes Thor carry the boat down
to the water and makes him row. Hymir catches a few whales. Thor keeps
rowing. Hymir becomes really frightened. He doesn't know where he is.
Thor finally stops and throws his line out and gets a bite. It is something
really strong because it pulls back. Thor tightens his belt and keeps
pulling. He breaks his feet through the bottom of the boat, but he just
makes himself bigger and stands upright in the water. Out of the water,
Thor pulls Jormungand, the World Snake. They
are both REALLY mad. Thor grabs his hammer. But Hymir is afraid and
cuts the line. Thor picks up the boat and dumps Hymir into the water.
Thor wades back to shore. Hymir has to swim hundreds of miles back.
He says they can take the kettle but first he picks up a stone goblet
and says, "You have to throw this down and break it." Thor
throws the goblet down and breaks a hole in the floor and breaks a stone
pillar, but the goblet will not break. Hymir's wife tells Thor that
the only thing harder than the goblet is Hymir's forehead. So Thor succeeds
in shattering the goblet. Thor picks up the kettle, turns it over and
wears it as a hat to carry it home. Thor and Tyr turn to see Hymir coming
at them with all his giant friends. Thor is pleased. He takes out Mjollnir
and kills them all. So Aegir can now keep the kettle.

The
Theft (and Recovery) of Mjollnir

One morning, Thor
wakes up to find that Mjollnir has been stolen
and Loki is not responsible. Thrym, the Frost
Giant, has the hammer. A message is brought to Asgard
from Thrym saying he wants Freya in exchange for
the hammer. Freya refuses, even though the Gods think it's a good idea.
The Gods turn to Loki who comes up with an idea (some stories say Heimdall
created the idea). They send a message back in acceptance. A few weeks
go by and finally the wedding caravan arrives at Thrym's home. Loki
is in charge. Freya is there, and she is beautiful. Thrym's whole family
is there. Thrym's sisters are grotesquely ugly. [Note: Only ugly giantesses
are evil.] His friends are all evil as well. The feast is ready. Wonderful
food is brought out. Thrym is disconcerted because Freya eats eight
salmon and three oxen all by herself. Thrym worries. Loki says she's
been so excited she hasn't eaten in a while. Thrym wants to sneak a
peak under the veil and he notices that her eyes are very red. Loki
says she hasn't slept from all the excitement. Thrym puts the hammer
in front of "Freya" who reaches out with his big brawny fist
and destroys everyone because of course it is really Thor. And Thor
and Loki went home and had a lot of fun that day.

Thor
Faces Geirrod

One day, Loki
is bored in Asgard. He wants to have fun going
to see the giants. He asks Freya if he may borrow
her robe of falcon feathers. He flies to
the home of a giant named Geirrod, who has two ugly daughters
Gjalp and Greip. Loki comes to rest on a branch outside
the window where Geirrod can see him. Geirrod sends out one of his men
to nab the hawk. Loki teases the giant, causing him to chase him up
a wall to make him fall but his foot gets caught and he can't get away.
The giant catches him and takes him inside. Geirrod sees that his eyes
are bright red and full of many colors. He knows that he is a god. He
squeezes him to force him to tell who he is. Loki refuses. Geirrod puts
him in a cage and starves him for three months. He then chokes him until
he tells him who he is. Geirrod says he won't free Loki unless he brings
back Thor without Mjollnir, the glove,
or his belt of strength. Loki goes back (and
eats for several days). He lures Thor out for a short walk, telling
him he doesn't need the hammer, glove, or belt. He says, "Geirrod's
daughters aren't so bad. Let's meet them -- Geirrod is a friendly host."
So Thor agrees. It is some distance. So they stop at the house of Grid
the giantess. She is the former wife of Odin. She
welcomes them. After Loki goes to sleep, Grid stirs Thor and tells him
he can't visit Geirrod unarmed. He takes Grid's own belt, iron gloves,
and an unbreakable staff. Loki is concerned about Thor's new weapons.
They come to a torrential river of water and menstrual blood. They must
cross. They are wading across, Loki's arms around Thor's neck. Because
of the current, they are swept away several times. Thor finally angrily
grabs hold of a tree. He wades up stream. He sees Gjalp damming part
of the river up with her body to increase the current and bleeding into
it. Thor heaves a boulder at her. He breaks several bones. So she goes
off maimed. They finally get to Geirrod's home. He isn't there. A servant
greets them. He takes them outside to an odd shed-like house with dirty
straw for beds. These are their quarters. Thor is angry but silent.
Thor sits down on a bench. Loki leaves to relieve himself. Thor feels
like he is still in the river. He realizes he and the bench are rising
toward the ceiling at a rapid rate. He grabs the staff, pushing it against
the ceiling, sending him down to the floor, and crushing Gjalp and Greip
who were hiding under the bench. Thor and Loki enter the house to complain.
Geirrod is furious and ready to kill. He has a pair of tongs in his
hand. He grabs a white hot bolt and throws it at Thor, thinking he doesn't
have his gauntlet. But with Grid's iron gloves, he catches it and throws
it back with all his strength. Geirrod steps behind a solid iron pillar.
The bolt goes all the way through the pillar, through Geirrod, through
the wall behind him, and is embedded in the mountain out back. Some
stories say they go home but first send for Thor's weapons and go wandering
through Jotunheim, et cetera. Thus the famous
story:

The
City of Utgard-Loki

In Thor's chariot
drawn by two rams/goats (Toothgrinder and Toothgnasher),
they come to a farm owned by humans, and they decide to stop and rest.
The farmer, a widower, has a son Thjalfi and a daughter Roskva.
The farmer is flattered that they wish to stay with him, but he is poor.
He only has a little gruel. Thor refuses it in sympathy. He takes one
of his goats and blasts it on the head with his hammer, skins it, and
roasts it on a spit. But he says they mustn't break any bones. Thor
and Loki are both voracious eaters. The humans are hungry. Thjalfi unwittingly
breaks a bone to suck the marrow out. They retire for the night. The
next morning, Thor takes the goat skin, puts all the bones back in,
and touches it with the end of his hammer. The goat comes back to life
but with a bad limp because of the broken bone. Thor is furious. The
farmer is terrified. He begs forgiveness and promises Thjalfi and Roskva
into servitude. Thjalfi becomes a valet and Roskva becomes the maidservant
of Sif, Thor's wife. Roskva is sent back to Asgard
in the chariot. So now, Loki, Thor, and Thjalfi (who is a very fast
runner) continue together on foot. Night begins to fall and there is
no place to stay. They come to a clearing in the woods. There is an
odd building. It is huge but there is no wall on the front face. They
enter. They travel down endlessly long halls. They turn back four times.
Finally, they find a short hallway with nothing at the end. So they
stop there to rest for the night. They begin to hear a muffled roar
outside, so loud that it hurts their heads. Thor sits up and waits,
poised with the hammer. Dawn breaks. They realize they have been sleeping
in a giant glove. And the giant is lying right there snoring, thus explaining
the roar. Thor hits him with the hammer. The giant wakes up. He begins
to talk. His name is Skrymir. He asks who they are. When he finds
out, his face falls in disappointment at Thor's size. But he says, "My
king would like to meet you, and my people would love to see you."
So they decide to go and see his king. Skrymir is out of sight immediately
because of the size of his strides. They catch up with him hours later.
He offers them food from his pouch which is tied. Loki and Thjalfi can't
untie or break the cord. Neither can Thor. Skrymir leaves again. They
must follow. Skrymir is asleep by the time they catch up. Thor climbs
a hill and blasts him on the head. Skrymir stirs and says, "Did
a leaf just fall on my head?" Thor smashes him again in his sleep.
Skrymir thinks it was a bird. Thor tightens his belt and blasts Skrymir
as hard as he can. This time Skrymir thinks it was an acorn. They get
to the city Utgard-Loki (which is also the name of the king).
["Utgard" means "outland"] The king comes to the
gate. He is disappointed by Thor but welcomes them in for a feast. They
go to the feasting hall and are just about to eat when the king stops
them and says that they play games first to whet the appetite. He asks
if they would like to run a race. Thjalfi will race against Hugi.
They will run 25 yards to a post and come back. In a flash, Thjalfi
gets there first, goes around the post, and finds that Hugi is already
back. It is a humiliating defeat. Thor DOES NOT like to lose. The king
says he has heard Loki is a voracious eater. He challenges him to an
eating contest with Logi. They set up a trough filled with roast
meat. They start at opposite ends and eat their way inward. They meet
at the exact center. It is a tie. Thor doesn't like it. Utgard-Loki
says that Logi also ate the bones and the trough itself so he wins.
Thor is angry. Utgard-Loki challenges Thor to a drinking contest. He
must drain a horn in one draught to prove his manhood. Thor takes an
incredibly long drink, but he has just barely lowered the level of the
liquid. Utgard-Loki challenges his strength. Thor says he will wrestle
anyone. Utgard-Loki brings in a little old lady so that Thor won't be
crushed. Her name is Ulli. They lock. Thor is straining with
all his might, and Ulli is just standing there. Thor goes down on one
knee. He has lost. Utgard-Loki says, "Look, here's an old cat.
Can you lift it off the ground?" Thor can only manage to lift one
paw off the ground. Thor is a furious frustrated loser. Utgard-Loki
says he is worried about them and sends them away. The king closes the
gate part way and then tells them that he is Utgard-Loki the master
magician, master of illusion. He had said he was Skrymir to protect
himself. The cords on the food pouch were steel bands. He did not sleep
at all. He put mountains beside his head to protect himself from the
blows of Mjollnir. The mountains are now valleys. "I was hoping
to lose you but you followed." So he rigged the contests. Hugi
was thought personified. No one is faster. But even so, Thjalfi got
to the post first. Logi was fire personified, and yet Loki kept up.
It is amazing. The drinking horn was attached at the other end to the
sea. Thor's drinking created neap tide. Ulli was old age itself personified.
No one can hold out against it, but Thor held out for a long time. The
cat was Jormungand. Thor almost picked him
up, which is terrifying because the Universe would have been torn apart.
The city disappears before Thor can smash it with his hammer. This demonstrates
that nothing can defeat Thor but magic. [Logi is an alterego of Loki,
God of Fire. Utgard-Loki is another persona of Loki, who would play
such tricks.]

The
Children of Odin

There is a giant
named Billing and his daughter Rinda. Many suitors came
for Rinda. She is not pleased with any of them. Billing knows that he
will soon be invaded by a nearby hostile army. Odin
sees how beautiful Rinda is and becomes the leader of Billing's army.
He leads them to a resounding victory. Odin decides then to woo Rinda.
How can she refuse? But she rejects him, too. Odin has a real eye for
beautiful women, no matter what kind, and never fails -- until now.
Odin returns as a jewelry maker. He makes magnificent jewelry for Rinda,
and she still refuses him. He returns as a handsome young man. She refuses
a third time. He takes out his rune staff and reads a spell. She is
in a trance. Odin leaves. Billing is devastated. Odin shows up as an
old woman who says she knows what to do. She ties Rinda to a chair.
After Odin rapes her, a child is born. The child is called Vali.
He is sort of a personification of the returning sun (Jul).
He is an archer god (representative of the sun's long rays). It only
took him one day to reach manhood. Vali may be the source of the image
of a cupid with bow and arrow -> "Valentine."

Another of Odin's
sons was born to Grid. He is Vidar the Silent.
He is the God of Resurrection and Renewal (like spring). He is silent
because he represents the Primeval Forest. He is a very strong eternal
force of nature either way. He is tall and handsome and armored. On
his right foot is a THICK leather shoe made up of scraps of leather.
[Scandinavians throw all scraps away for Vidar's shoe.]

Balder and
Hoder are twin brother gods, the sons of Odin and Frigga.
Balder is the most glorious and beautiful of all the Gods. He is very
even-tempered, compassionate, and pleasant. Hoder is short, dark, almost
ugly, and blind. The two brothers possibly represent day and night.
Balder has a nightmare which depresses him badly. He prophesies his
own death. He sees himself dead in the near future. Odin knows the truth
already and says nothing. Frigga also knows but refuses to accept it.
She goes throughout the universe and extracts promises from everyone
and everything not to harm Balder. And when she returns, she tells the
Gods, who are skeptical at first. But in trying, they see that rocks
REFUSE to hit him, as do arrows and spears. Nothing can harm him. Frigga
still can't watch the "fun" without being disturbed. She goes
to rest in her hall and an old, old woman visits her. Frigga cheers
up the seemingly sad stranger with the story of how she is protecting
her son. The woman questions her, "Everything?" But there
was one thing that was too insignificant for Frigga to bother with:
mistletoe. The old woman leaves and goes around the corner where she
turns back into Loki the Trickster. Loki slips out
to the edge of the Gods having their fun with Balder. He sits beside
Hoder and asks why he isn't joining in. Loki picks up some mistletoe
and magically turns it into a hardened dart (a short javelin). He offers
it to the blind Hoder to throw. Hoder hesitates, but Loki says he will
guide his throw. Hoder throws, piercing Balder straight through the
heart. Balder falls down dead. Loki slips away. The Gods see Hoder as
a murderer. Hoder doesn't even know what has happened. When he finds
out, he too is stunned. The Gods realize that Loki is guilty. Some of
them set out to find him. Frigga is heart-broken. She should have known
better because she can see the future. She begs anyone for help, refusing
to give up. A god named Hermod offers to help by taking Sleipnir
to the Underworld and requesting that Hela release
Balder. It takes him nine days and nights at top speed to get there.
Hela says if they can get EVERYONE to shed a tear for him, she will
release Balder. The Gods go throughout all the nine worlds -- everyone
is weeping. But in Jotunheim, a giantess named
Thokk refuses to weep. Later they realize that Thokk was Loki.
They put the corpse on Balder's ship. Odin puts Draupnir
on Balder's chest. He leans down and whispers something to the corpse.
No one can hear. The ship, loaded with gold, is too heavy to push out
to sea. They send for a giantess renowned for her strength to push the
ship. She arrives, riding in on a wild-eyed timberwolf with a bridle
of poisonous snakes. Hyrokkin is her name. Odin sets four berserkers
in charge of the wolf and snakes. Hyrokkin goes and gives the ship a
heavy kick. The ship rolls out so fast it sets the roller logs on fire.
Thor arrives and almost bashes her head in, but the Gods stop him. The
ship burns and Balder is lost to them. Thor and Kvassir
(personified spit) and several others go out to find Loki, who is hiding
in a fisherman's cottage near a river, idly weaving a fishing net. He
hears them coming. He burns the net and turns himself into a fish (a
salmon) in the river. Kvassir, God of Ultimate Wisdom, sees the ashes
of the net and immediately discerns the situation. The Gods immediately
set to work making another net. When they are finished, Thor stands
on one side of the river, and all the other Gods stand on the other
side. The salmon swims under the net. They sew rocks to the bottom of
the net to drag the river. Loki jumps over the net. Now the Gods split
up -- some on each side of the river with Thor wading behind the net.
He is miffed. Loki panics. He swims with all his speed and leaps up
but Thor catches him by the tail. (From that time forward, the salmon
has had a crimped tail.) Loki doesn't bother pleading for mercy. They
must give him a kind of eternal punishment. They must tie him in one
place forever but the bonds must be magical. Loki's other wife Sygin
has two sons Narvi and Vali. The Gods turn Vali into a
wild wolf who immediately attacks and rips apart Narvi. They use Narvi's
intestines to make bonds to tie up Loki. They take him into a cave and
tie him to a rock. He cannot move. Skadi comes
along. Loke made her laugh and she hates him for it. Her vengeance is
to bring in a gigantic venomous serpent. The Gods place it on a ledge
directly above his face. The poison constantly drips on to his face
(causing a burning, searing pain). They leave him like that. Sygin decides
to help him. She sits beside him with a bowl in her hands over his face
to keep the poison from hurting him. But of course the bowl fills up
once in a while. At those times, his pain is so horrible that his entire
body shakes and quivers (earthquakes).

The
Children of Thor

Magni and
Modi are the sons of Thor and Jarnsaxa,
a giantess. [A "sax(a)" is a heavy knife or short sword, hand
axe. "Jarn" = "iron."] Magni is the personification
of strength. Modi is the personification of courage. In one story, Thor
has just killed a giant. He has a stone embedded in his forehead. The
giant's leg falls on top of Thor, who is injured and can't lift it.
Magni, when only three hours old, lifts the leg when none of the Gods
could.

Those
Who Died a Straw Death

Niflheim.
The entrance to Niflheim is far away. One god, riding the eight-legged
horse, took nine days and nights at top speed, through rocky and icy
terrain, to get there. The corpse must be left with hell shoes
to make the journey. After a long trek, the spirit comes to the Gjoll
River, which is spanned by the Gjollar Bridge. It is the
same name as Heinmdall's horn. The bridge is
huge and high and made of crystal, hung by a single hair. The spirit
must cross the bridge carefully to reach a toll gate attended by Modgud,
a very ugly skeleton woman. The spirit must pay a toll, thus the corpse
must be left with hell money. The spirit must then go through
the Ironwood Forest. The trees are made of iron and have no leaves.
They are very thick, and they scratch the passers badly. Then comes
the Hellgate, beside which is the Gnipa Cave, hiding in
which is Garm, a giant ferocious wild dog who hates Odin
(and Odin hates him back). The only way to pass is to throw him hell
cakes (which must also be left with the corpse) and slip past. Then
the spirit can hear the spring Hvergelmir
bubbling. Then the spirit can enter Hela's hall,
which is named Misery. Your eternal fate is decided by what kind
of life you have led. The innocents go into a state of negative bliss
or oblivion. Those not innocent are banished to walk along Nastrond,
a strand of rotting corpses, out into the water. At the end, they must
keep going. They must wade through streams of ice cold snake venom.
[Snakes were hated culturally . The imagery of the cold venom is similar
to a very hot jalapeno from the freezer -- ice cold but fiery hot.]
They they make their way through a long cave crawling with poisonous
snakes. They reach the end of the cave and water gushes through and
washes the corpse/spirit down to Hvergelmir (a spring of boiling water).
All the flesh is boiled off the bones. Nidhug
stops gnawing the roots of the World Tree to
gnaw the bones. Various people are accused at the annual Thing
or Althing, They are placed before the Althing. The tribunal
would declare them an outlaw or not. An outlaw became fair game. You
can take back what he owes, but you have to do it yourself, similar
to the Old West.

Those
Who Died Valiantly

Those who meet
their death on the battlefield are taken by Freya
and her Valkyries up to Asgard. Some are
taken to Valhalla, a huge hall. Those dead who stay in Valhalla
are the Einheriar. There are more there each year. They are waiting.
And while they are waiting, they get up each morning and go boar hunting
carrying long spears. [Like the Greeks, the Scandinavians had a strong
passion for boar hunting. The boar is good for food. But the full size
male is a very dangerous animal.] Someone beats the bushes till the
boar comes out, and he is MAD. The Einheriar stand in a circle around
the boar. Each man hopes he will be chosen by the boar to be attacked.
As the boar charges, the chosen one drops down on his left knee and
holds his spear out. The boar runs into the spear. The boar, impaled,
runs along the spear until it is able to gouge the thigh of its attacker.
Then the chosen man kills the boar with his sword. The Greeks loved
it. The Scandinavians put a cross bar on the end of the spear to simplify
matters. They take the boar back to Valhalla for a grand feast with
much mead. Every morning, the boar is alive again
-- the same one -- and they hunt it again. Valhalla's door is large
enough for 800 abreast to march through.

Fimbul

A day is going
to come for the Fimbul winter (winter of winters) when brothers
will be fighting brothers, parents will abandon their children, children
will turn on their parents. There will be three winters with no summer.
At the end of the winter it will be Ragnarok (German name Gotterdämmerung
-- "the Twilight of the Gods," see Wagnerian opera). On Ragnarok,
many things will happen. Nidhug will gnaw through
the roots of Yggdrasil at which time Jormungand
will arise from out of the ocean and Fenrir will
burst his bonds. Then Loki will be broken free and
will lead the Frost Giants and all their dead souls into open combat
against the Gods (like Satan in Christian mythology).
They will have to cross a river on a raft Nagilfari which must
be completed before Ragnarok. The raft is made from the fingernails
of corpses (Scandinavians always cut the nails of the dead). Hela
has to release everyone. Garm breaks out of the
Gnipa cave. All of this is accompanied by a great
noise and commotion. Heimdall sees what is happening,
blows a long blast on the Gjallar horn. All the
Gods know what is happening and arm themselves. There is a tremendous
number of horrid beings to face but the Gods are in high spirits. They
are joined by the Einheriar who awaited this
day for all time. Loki leads the baddies across the river, headed toward
a plan called Vigrid. There they meet in the battle of Ragnarok,
a meeting of all the foes. Garm comes charging out of nowhere. Tyr
faces Garm and the battle is long. They kill each other (because Tyr
has no right hand). Loki comes charging up to face Heimdall. A long
battle ensues, ending in the death of both. Even Surtri
from Muspelheim appears and fights agains
the Gods. Only Frey can equal him in brilliance.
They meet in battle. Frey doesn't have his sword; he is killed. Surtri
lives. Odin spies Fenrir coming. Odin has Gungnir,
but Fenrir attacks him from his blind side and kills him. But Vidar,
Odin's son, jumps forward (the silent one with his thick shoe) and steps
on Fenrir's lower jaw, grabs the upper jaw and rips the wolf in half.
Thor can't wait to get at Jormungand, who is likewise
full of fury. Thor blasts him with a blow that completely crushes his
head, killing him instantly. But his mouth is full of poison which pours
over Thor. Thor staggers back nine steps and falls down dead. Then Surtri
gathers his fire demons and they pour fire forth and destroy most of
the universe. It is the end of the world. Nobody wins. There is a ray
of hope: Mimir the Wise takes two human beings
and hides them in the folds of the trunk of Yggdrasil asleep. Lif
(male) and Lifthrasir (female). They live through the battle.
In English, their names are translated "Life" and "Lifethirster."
They sleep for years. The earth begins to turn green again. They wake.
They come forth to begin repopulation. And they see that some gods are
now reappearing. Honir, Thor's sons Magni
and Modi (strength and courage), Odin's sons Vidar
and Vali (second generation -- more peaceable),
and Hoder and Balder (Balder
is the symbol of peace now ushered in -- the natural leader). They find
some chess pieces in the grass and they sit and play chess. And life
will be peaceful forever.

The Greeks said
the Celts called themselves KELTOI, thus our pronunciation. "Gaelic,"
"Gaul," "Gallic" are all of the same word "Celt"/"Celtic."
They appear very early in Indo-European history. They settled around
the source of the Danube River circa 1000 B.C. and spread throughout
Europe. They were not a homogeneous group. They were wild men. They
didn't get along with anyone or with each other. They were a loose confederation
-- almost. They just knew each other and fought outsiders more than
they did each other. They were very heavily influenced by the Scythians,
who in the old world of Europe were premier goldworkers. This rubbed
off on the Celts. They wore big sweeping mustaches. The Celts learned
horsemanship from the Scythians who were quite good. The Scythians wore
pants/trousers. The Celts learned to weave wool in a tartan pattern
from the Scythians. The Celts learned of the spoked wheel (which was
good for chariot speed) from the Scythians. The Celts also learned to
make iron tires for their wheels. The Celts began to spread through
Europe. They frightened the Romans.

Circa 900 B.C.,
the Celts were moving into Gaul. After two or three centuries, they
moved across the Pyrenees into Iberia. Those who moved there stayed
a while and mixed with the Phoenicians in South Iberia (Canaanites).
There was a cultural mingling. The Celts learned to sail from the Phoenicians
who were brilliant mariners. From this contact, they sailed from the
South Iberian Peninsula out to the Atlantic to Brittania (the present
day United Kingdom). Some believe the Phoenicians, bringing the Celts,
found the way to the New World. A Celtic form of writing in the Canaanite
language was found in the Americas. (America's "Stonehenge"
in New Hampshire and various other places in the Northeast.)

Circa 400 B.C.,
the Celts invaded Italy. They had been trading with the Etruscans for
years. Circa 390 B.C., they sacked Rome and several other cities. They
only pulled out after the Romans paid a huge ransom in gold. [A Celtic
chieftain weighed out the gold in scales. A sword was added after a
complaint: "Woe to the vanquished."]

Circa 350 B.C.,
the Celts in Europe moved in a different direction. They sacked the
shrine at Delphi and moved into Anatoly (Anatolia/Turkey) and established
a colony which became the city of Galatia. As the Celts moved south
and the Mediterraneans moved north, they mixed. Thus the coloration
of northern and southern Italians, northern and southern Spaniards,
and northern and southern Frenchmen. We think of the Celts as primarily
moving into the British Isles.

Many
of the Celts went into battle naked (wild men). [The Druids (magicians
and priests) believed the naked body to be sacred.] They loved fighting
and drinking and partying. They wore their hair long. In battle, they
mixed mud, lime, and water into their hair. They pulled it out to stick
out in points in battle. They all roared as loud as they could to go
into battle. They used iron weapons (40-inch swords, spears, shortswords).
The Celts didn't cross the English Channel. They went around the North
Atlantic coast.

The first wave
were the Q-Celts, known as Goidelic (Q). They were made
up of three sets: (1) Irish, (2) Manx, and (3) Scots,
which were made up of the Scotiae and the Picts.

Q-Celts
(Goidelic)

Irish

Manx

Scots

Scotiae

Picts

The
Picts were very war-like. They used blue joad dye on their clothing.
In the summer, they went into battle naked with their bodies painted
blue. The Scotiae were less irrespressible. We don't know when these
people came in. The Picts are very mysterious. They gave everyone trouble.
They were absorbed circa 800 A.D. The Mc/Mac prefix comes from the Q-Celts.
It means "Son of." Ireland's "O" prefix (i.e.,
O'Brien, O'Connell) means "Grandson of." Goidelic = Gaelic.
The Manx were on the Isle of Mann.

The tribes did
not get along like a nation. They were comparable to street gangs. Before
the Romans, these existed in Britain. The Romans were the first to come
(under Julius Caesar) to Britain as non-Celts. The Romans battled and
won and made the main isle of Britain in 55 B.C. their major military
settlement until 410 A.D. They left because they were called back to
deal with a new barbarian threat to Rome. The Romans didn't venture
much out of Britain. The Britons had trouble with the Picts when the
Romans departed. They had been taken care of by the Romans and were
not able to fight. They sent for mercenary armies from Germany ->
Angles, Saxons, Jutes. These overcame the Picts,
driving them back north again. The Britons paid them, but the mercenaries
decided not to leave. This led to war, circa 490 A.D., which lasted
for 40 years. Circa 530 or 540 A.D., the Germans drove out the Britons
and took over their land. The Jutes went to the southeastern tip. The
Angles and Saxons (tribal German armies) blended into one group: the
Anglo-Saxons. The region becomes known as Angle-Land which
became "England." Those Britons who had been driven out fled
south to a peninsula in the north of France: Brittany. They become the
Bretons. At this point in England, the Angles and Saxons can't
get north in to Scotland because the Celts are too strong. The Romans
built Hadrian's Wall to keep the Picts and the Scotiae out. The
wall was then used by the Anglo-Saxons to divide. There is a place in
Wales called Welsh Mardes - "No Man's Land," pretty
much. They did get into Cornwall, though.

Circa
800 A.D., the Vikings appear and wreak havoc
everywhere. The Celts of Ireland are heavily infiltrated. This is also
true in north and west Scotland. Circa 1100, many Irish went to Alba
(now Scotland) and mingled with the Scotiae and the Scandinavians, who
absorbed or destroyed the Picts, yielding the Scots. Highland Scots
are more Scandinavian. Lowland Scots are more Anglo-Saxon.

In Ireland, there
is already a mixture of people who loved battle. The Scots and the Irish
are sort of insular. The Welsh were unable to do that and lost their
war-like aspect. Great Britain is very heterogeneous. Many Celts of
Britain call themselves Cymric brothers and dislike the Anglo-Saxon
English. Circa 1600+, James I (a Scot) took the throne of England and
allowed many Scots to move to Ireland with land grants. He did it to
spread the Protestant faith. They ended up in northern Ireland. This
is the origin of Protestant Northern Ireland.

Circa 1700, huge
numbers of Scots moved to America. They were called Scotch-Irish. Finally,
the Scots and the English came to peaceful terms after the Uprising
of '45 (1745). By 1800, there was no more warfare between the Scots
and the English. The English won and forbade the Scots to wear tartans.
Not till 1810 could the Scots wear kilts again. Ireland does not and
never has liked England. The Irish want Northern Ireland back. They
lived under miserable conditions for 200 years AND there's nothing to
do ("idle hands . . ."). The English never got along with
the Celts, but then the Celts never got along with the Celts either.
In Scotland, however, because the people are less wild and more intellectual,
the Gods of Ireland, Wales, and Gaul are virtually the same, so they
predate the arrival of the Celts in Great Britain.

Fomors
lived on and around Ireland. They were giants mostly. They represent
the powerful but dark forces of nature. Heavy dark storms, etc. They
are often represented as being deformed and/or ugly. They fight virtually
every wave of new settlers. Oddly, occasionally a VERY handsome man
emerges. For instance, Bres, who is so unbelievably beautiful,
he becomes the measuring standard for beauty, although he is still mean
inside. At one point, a tower of glass is built
on an island by the Fomors, from which they rule Ireland. The two Fomors
who built the tower are Mork and Conan. The Fomors often
use dark magic. Irish magic is usually druidic, primarily illusion.
This is the origin of the phrase "casting a glamour,"
which means an illusion. In the Celtic language, phrasing usually places
adjectives after nouns. In English, only a Celtic word illustrates this:
galore, as in, "There were people galore." Another
such word is slew, as in "a slew of things." This word
is used in Celtic as in "army of faeries" = "slew of
faeries."

Mythological
Waves of Celts Coming to Ireland

The first settlers
after the flood were the Partholons (named after Partholon, a
leader who came from Greece with twenty-four males and twenty-four females
on May 1st). Circa 2600 B.C., they met and battled the Fomors.
They won. In 300 years, their numbers increased to 5,000. On May 1st,
300 years after their arrival, all of the Partholons were stricken by
the same disease and died on the plain of their arrival. They brought:
basic ideas of law and ritual, working of gold, the first domesticated
cattle, cattle breeding/raising, the first cauldron (of course because
they could make porridge [milk with pork, beef, two whole goats, lots
of fat, and oatmeal -- salt to taste]). They washed down this porridge
with beer, which was one of their developments.

Next came the Nemeds,
led by Nemed. They came from Scythia. They had to defeat the Fomors
four times. A lot of Nemeds died (including Nemed) of the same epidemic
as the Partholons because they were weak. The Fomors could do new things.
Two Fomor kings (Mork and Conan)
built a Glass Tower on Tory Island. They exacted a tribute annually
from the Nemeds: two-thirds of their grain, two-thirds of their milk,
and two thirds of their children. This tribute was collected on the
first of November every year. Finally, only thirty Nemeds were left.
They left the island, but not together. Fifteen went south to "Greece."
Fifteen went to "the North of the World," i.e., Alba.

The
next wave of settlers was more important. They were the Fir Bolgs
and Fir Gailioin. They were like the people of Belgium and the
people of Gaul. These are the southern group of Nemeds who left and
are now returning. They take over. But later the northern group returns
as well. They are the Tuatha De Danann. They had learned magic
and poetry. They said they either came from the north of from the sky.
When they arrived, it rained fire and blood for three days and a heavy
fog covered everything so they could land. This was druidic work --
illusion. They understood the druidic glamour.
They brought with them four treasures: 1) Nuada's Sword (Nuada
was their king; none could escape his sword.), 2) Lugh's Spear
(The spear would tear through the ranks of the enemy and wipe them out.),
3) The Dagda's Cauldron (from which
none ever left hungry), 4) The Stone of
Fal (a stone which would cry out when touched by the lawful king
-- see Excalibur stone and the Stone of Scone
of the Scots which sat beneath the throne when the king was crowned).

The
Tuatha's landed and met the Fir Bolgs on a huge plain called Magh
Tuiredh /moi - tyü' - ruh/. Nuada,
king of the Tuatha De Danann, and Eochaid, king
of the Fir Bolgs, send out envoys to meet and discuss the details of
the battle. The Fir Bolgs, carrying short heavy spears, are shorter,
heavier, and darker. The Tuatha De Danann are concerned by these weapons.
The Fir Bolgs are scared by the long slender spears of the Tuatha De
Danann. They agree to a short 105 day truce while each side makes weapons
to match those of the opponent. The battle is individual between heroes
-- not mélées. Eochaid is called. In this battle, Nuada
loses his right hand at the wrist. The Tuatha De Danann are winning.
When only 300 Fir Bolgs are left, a truce is called on the condition
that the Fir Bolgs must move to one corner of the island. They move
to what we call Connacht (also Connaught) in the northwestern
corner of Ireland. This area takes up one fifth of the land. At this
time, there were five parts to Ireland. The Modern Irish (Dark or Black
Irish) are considered to be descended from the Fir Bolgs. The Northwest
is Connacht. The Northeast is Ulster. The Center East is Meath.
The Southeast is Munster. The Southwest is Leinster. Meath
has since disappeared. Ireland is now in four quarters. The Fir Bolgs
were confined to Connacht. The Tuatha De Danann becaome the gods of
Ireland.

The
Tuatha De Danann (TDD) manage to keep peace with the Fomors. Eventually,
Nuada must step down because the king is required
to be perfect, and he has lost his hand. This is a dilemma. The Fomors
suggest Bres (the beautiful one), who is king of
the Fomors and a sort of subjugate king of the TDD. Ultimately, Bres
is removed from the throne. This leads to imminent war. The
Second Battle of Magh Tuiredh. The TDD win. Now the Milesians,
led by Mil, appear on May 1st from the "Underworld"
(possibly Spain). A magic battle ensues. The TDD are defeated. The Milesians
are the ancestors of the rest of the Irish. In one version of the telling,
several boatloads of the TDD sail west to Tir Nan Og ("Land
of the Young"). Another version says they go to a large island
named after one of their leaders, Breasail (Breasail's Land =
"big island" = Brazil). The rest of them go underground, living
in barrows (tumulus, burial mound) with an entrance stone as shown at
right. They were called Sidhe /shee/. The Men of Sidhe: Fir
Sidhe, and the Women of Sidhe: Bean Sidhe, which evolved
into our word "banshee." Later, they shrank and became known
as Leprechauns.

Domnu. The
people known as the Children of Domnu are the Fomors. She was
a great and powerful earth goddess. Balor is the epitome of the
evil Fomor. His father was a druid but not good because Fomors were
inherently evil beings. When Balor was a boy, his father had druids
over to dabble in magic. Balor, curious, crept up to the window to spy
on them. The window was open partly. Unhappily, some of the smoke blew
into Balor's eye. He screamed in pain, but his eye had become affected
and anyone he looked at with that eye died instantly (Archetype:"The
Evil Eye"). He grew to be an enormous giant. He could hardly
move around on his own. The Fomors knew he was the ultimate weapon.
They would go into battle and face the seated Balor in front of the
enemy. But they had to have a crane with a hook to open his eyelid because
the eye was always kept shut. Archetypally, this is fairly widespread.
Ra, in Egypt, had such an eye. Shiva,
in India, has a third eye in the forehead, which is the ultimate weaspon
of the universe. The Fomors represented the dark side of nature as well
as storms (so the eye represents lightning). The TDD are called the
Children of Danu becuase they are the children of the earth goddess
Danu. Her husband is Bile /bee' lay/ or Beli, depending
on whether his name is being spoken in Gaelic or Irish. Bile is a war
god and the god of death. Danu is sometimes also known as Don
or Anu. She is the goddess of earthly fruitfulness (hills are
called the "breasts of Danu") and fertility -- prosperity,
abundance, and fertility. But Danu and Domnu are somehow connected ultimately.
In Gaul, Danu is called Donau. In Slavic languages, there is
a river called Dunai. We call it Danube. Dann is
a river of Russia. Much of Eastern Europe reflects Danu's following.
Western cultures are almost always matriarchally religious. Bile is
considered the father of the Milesians. This implies the same goddess
is the goddess of the Fomors, the TDD, and the Milesians -- three different
waves of civilization unknowingly worshipping the same deity.

Nuada
(Nudd, Lludd -- British or Welsh). Nuada Argetlam. There is a
gate in England called Lludd Gate. Lludd's Town became London.
"Argetlam" originates as follows: "lam" = "limb",
"Arget" = "silver", "argetlam" means "silver
hand" or "silver limb." Nuada's missing hand is replaced
by a silver one so finely wrought that it is actually usable as a real
hand. It is all articulated, but it is silver and beautifully carved
with arabesques. Nuada is a god of war, a very grim aspect. His followers
often sacrificed to him -- occasionally humans -- sometimes for success
in battle or fertility. In "The Wicker Man," a modern version
of Celts sacrificing someone to gain fertility for their fields appears.
This was commonplace. Nuada is killed in the Second
Battle of Magh Tuiredh. But first, he has several wives. 1) Fea,
"hateful one," 2) Nemon, "venomous" or "frenzy"
[She is a goddess who, with a terrifying cry, sends panic through armies.
The Celts loved battle frenzy.], 3) Babh, "Fury" and
"raven" [the Celts call a raven the hoddy crow -- a carrion
eater after battle], 4) Macha, "battle" [difficult
to distinguish from wife #5], 5) Morrigu,
the most important of the wives. She is "the great or phantom queen."
She carries spears in both hands and is a deadly fighter. She can be
helpful in battle or a wicked and destructive force. She goes on the
mainland to become Morgana of the Brits. She then becomes Morgan
Lafey (the Fairy of Arthur).

The
Dagda. "The Good God." God of fertility, abundance, earth.
A kind of comic god. Pot-bellied, all grey, considered very ugly. He
wears horsehide boots with the hairy side out (anti-cultural). He wears
a brown, low-necked tunic (like a smock) baring his backside and genitals.
He wears a cloak with a hood which comes just below his shoulders. He
has an air of the Otherworld (often called Faerie /fay'-er-ee/.) The
Dagda's Cauldron is called The Undry (never dry or empty).
This magical abundance is an association with the Otherworld. The Dagda
has a reputation for his ability to control weather and crops. He has
a harp made of oak. He plays and calls new seasons into existence (this
is very important to the Celts). He has a club, which is too heavy to
carry. It would require eight men to carry it, so there's a wheel built
into the end to drag it around. It leaves a track like a boundary mark.
In Celtic society, one would be killed for moving a boundary stone --
this is very important to them. The heavy end of the club can kill anything.
The light end can bring life back. (See Mjollnir.)
The Dagda is lord over life and death.

He has a wife Boanne
-> Boann. Once there was a well in Ireland over which grew
nine hazel trees. Hazelnuts were believed to impart wisdom. The nuts
would fall into the water. Salmon would eat them and become magical
(the Salmon of Knowledge and Wisdom). So eating salmon was taboo. Boann
had to know whether there was any truth to the belief. She approached
the well (even that was taboo) and the water reacted. It burst out of
the well, forming a river called Boyne.

Brigit
(pronounced like "breeched") is the daughter of the Dagda.
She is the goddess of fire and the hearth, poetry, patroness of arts
and crafts. This is part of the Triple Goddess
Archetype. The phenomenon appears as 1) goddess of many things and
people split her into three separate goddesses with similar names and
the same characteristics, or 2) three separate goddesses are combined
into one who gets the name of the most important goddess and the characteristics
of all three. Brigit is number two, "the exalted one." She
came from a goddess of healing, a goddess of poetry and learning, and
a goddess of arts and crafts. When Christianity
came to Ireland, she became Saint Brigid, who became Saint
Bridget. She was supposedly born at sunrise and the house appeared
to be on fire. When she took her vows, a veil of fire rose from her
head. Fire was so sacred, for centuries they had a perpetual flame that
burned for her.

Ogma
is the son of the Dagda and Boann. Romans called
him Hercules. He is immensely strong and carries a huge club
like his father. He has two epithets: 1) "The
Honeymouthed" because he is the god of eloquence and is clearly
highly prized by the Irish who, like all those of the British Isles,
treasure language. He is bald, old, grey-skinned and wrinkled from the
sun. He is immensely strong but friendly, thus his second epithet 2)
"The Sunnyfaced." He is shown as leading a band of five or
six people, each of whom is attached to him by a thin gold chain which
leads from his tongue to their ears. He invented a form of writing called
Ogham writing. It consists of a series of lines across a transverse
line as shown to the right (graphic pending). It was easy to carve in
stones. Ogma is a god of literature. His wife is Etain. Tuiren
and Cairpre are their sons. Cairpre becomes the bard of the TDD.

Angus
Mac Oc is the son of the Dagda and Boann. "Oc"
is sometimes spelled "Og." His name means "Son of the
Young One" or "Son of the Youthful One." He is a kind
of Eros, god of love and beauty. He has a golden harp. He sings
and whispers beautiful things to young lovers. His kisses and whispers
are seen as birds hovering above. The Celts say, "Angus Mac Oc
is passing." He is also a very willful trickster. The Dagda and
Boann caused the sun to stand still for nine months so that Angus Mac
Oc was conceived and born on the same day.

Mider
is another son of the Dagda and Boann. He is an
Underworld-ish god. The Isle of Mann is associated with the Underworld.
Mider is victimized by other gods. He is often the butt of the joke.

Diancecht
/jun-keCHt'/ is the Druid of the TDD.
He is a magician primarily. He is sort of holy but priests are unnecessary.
He can cure, cast glamours, give life sometimes.
He is the main healer of the gods. He is very wise. Morrigu
gives birth to a child, a son. It is unbelievably horrible-looking --
as ugly as they come. Diancecht said horrible things will come from
this. Destruction, danger. The child must be destroyed. Morrigu protests
but the gods agree with Diancecht. Diancecht kills it with a sword.
He cuts open the child's heart, where he finds three poisonous snakes.
He kills them. But the bodies could cause great havoc. So he burns the
bodies then throws the ashes into the nearest river, killing everything
in the river. The river begins to boil and becomes incredibly turbulent.
It is named Barrow, which means "to boil." It is called
the River Barrow (the word order is Celtic and necessary).

Lyr
(Llyr) = "the sea" Lyr is god of the sea. He has twenty-seven
sons and at least three wives. We know nothing of the first. Lyr is
widowed. He then marries Aebh /eef/, the granddaughter of the
Dagda. Aebh has four children (three sons and one
daughter) with Lyr. She dies. Lyr marries Aeife /eef'-uh/. She
appears to be a loving wife and mother. But she becomes jealous. So
she casts a REAL spell. She turns the children into swans. They will
be swans for "three sets of three hundred years." She repents
somewhat but doesn't tell Lyr. Lyr searches for his children. He comes
to the lake where the swans are swimming and they tell him what has
happened. Lyr cannot break the spell. He goes to Bobh
the Red, the father of Aebh. Bobh is furious. He can't help Lyr,
but he can exact vengeance. He turns Aeife into the one thing she fears
most: a shrieking demon. At the end of the three sets of three hundred
years, the children are turned back into human beings, but because they
are nine hundred years old, they fall dead immediately and disintegrate.
This is the first of the Three Sorrows of Storytelling. It is
called the Story of the Children of Lyr. This is the source,
indirectly, of Shakespeare's "King Lear." CAER LLYR, the Romans
called LLYR CASTRA ("Llyr Camp"), the English called it "Leicester."

Manannan
Mac Lir, son of Lyr. Patron god of sailors. God
of the headlands, of the headwaters, and god of merchants. He has a
sword called "The Retaliator" which never fails to kill. He
has a helmet with two magic jewels that (like the helmet) shine like
the sun. He has a cloak of invisibility. He has a horse called "Shining
Mane" which can go anywhere, and a boat "Wavesweeper"
which can sail anywhere with or without water (like Frey,
who was the son of Njord, a similar god). He keeps
pigs. They magically renew themselves when eaten once a year because
they bestow eternal youth at the Feast of Age. (See the feast
of the Einheriar at Valhalla.)
Manhannan Mac Lir rides a chariot. The waves are his horses. But storms
are referred to as the tresses of his wife. He is associated wit the
Otherworld (Faerie) because when the TDD split, he led a party westward
to the Island of the Abhilach /ah'-vee-laCH/ ["Island of
Apples"] (Isle of Avalon = Catalina), or the Isle of Mann
(named after Manannan Mac Lir).

Goibhniu
/goyv'-nyu/ is the smith of the TDD. He makes tools and weapons. Any
of his weapons will find its mark and anyone wounded by one will survive
(under ordinary circumstances). He is also a healer. He is invoked to
cure wounds. He can heal or cure any WOUND. He is also a builder. Goibhniu
the Architect (an epithet) has the Feast of
Goibhniu -- an Otherworld Feast. Anyone who eats it will be exempt
from disease and old age. It makes the gods virtually immortal.

Lugh
Lamfadha. Lugh means "light," like the Latin "lux."
Lam means "limb," "arm," or "hand." Fadha
means "far" or "farther." His name is translated
Lugh of the Long Hand, "the Far Shooter," because of a sling
he uses. He is usually dressed in green. He is a kind of sun god. He
is young, handsome and athletic. His great grandfather is Diancecht
the Druid. He is the maternal great grandson of Balor,
the Fomor with the evil eye. He is a kind of solar deity. His sling
is called Lugh's Chain. It is a reference to the Milky Way. The Celts
were very fear-inspiring in battle. They took the dead and hung their
heads on doors and the like as trophies. They also killed the enemy,
took heads, removed the brains, and pushed a rock into the center of
the brain and let it dry and harden (like a snowball with a rock inside).
In warfare, when fighting the same enemy, they would sling the brains
back at their enemies. This was a form of psychological warfare. Lugh
also has a spear (one of the four treasures). The spear is analogous
to Gungnir, but it is alive. It kills the enemy
on its own. However, it was so bloodthirsty that the head had to be
kept in a potion made from puppies at all times. Immediately upon taking
it out, Lugh had to have a firm grip on it. When let go, it would burst
into flame and tear through the ranks, killing everyone. (It is a lightning
bolt.) Lugh had a hound. (The Irish love cattle, hounds, and fine horses.)
It was a warrior hound -- also magic. When it went into a lake or pond
or pool, the water would become mead. Lugh was master of ALL the arts.
[Archetype: Young god who has combined powers
of all the gods and is capable of killing some huge monster (like the
Babylonian Marduk).]

The
final confrontation between the TDD and the Fomors. It starts at a
place where Nuada has his silver hand attached to
his wrist. The TDD need a new king. The TDD asked Bres
to be king. he had taken a TDD wife, Brigit. Bres
must give a huge number of hostages and promise abdication to the TDD
to insure everyone's well-being and just rule. Bres begins putting on
pressure. He taxes them. He tricks them out of all the milk their cattle
produce. He forces them into labor for him. The Dagda
builds castles. Ogma carries lumbers and firewood
daily. They begin losing strength because Bres is stingy with their food.
Diancecht's two children (a son Miach
and a daughter Airmid) have learned their father's art. They go
to Nuada's castle. They find out where Nuada's hand is buried and dig
it up. They take it into the castle. His silver hand had begun to fester
around his wrist. He was going to die. They magically healed him and gave
his hand back to him. Diancecht is furious because he is jealous of their
power. So he calls them to him. Miach approached. Diancecht took a sword
and struck him over the head, laying open the flesh. Miach healed himself.
Diancecht struck him again. This time he was cut to the bone, but he healed
himself yet again. Next he was cut to the brain, and again he healed himself.
The fourth blow cut his brain in two. Miach died. Diancecht does not punish
Airmid.

Cairpre,
the bard, visited Bres. The Celts really honor singers and poets. Minstrels
wandered from manor house to manor house to entertain. Cairpre is put
in the smallest of Bres's rooms and sent table scraps to eat. He is
insulted. He wrote a singing satire that caused boils to break out all
over Bres's once-beautiful face. He is not perfect anymore. He must
step down from the throne. Bres is furious. He goes back to the Fomors
and demands war against the TDD.

The capital city
of the TDD is Tara.

Lugh
comes to visit at Nuada's castle. Nuada will be king again. Lugh offers
his assistance. [When Airmid and Miach come to Nuada's gate, the porter
at first won't let them in unless they prove their powers. Miach grabs
a cat, takes an eye and places it int the porter's empty socket and
magically makes it his own. The porter allows them in. But the porter
now suffers the following: 1) all day long the one eye tries to sleep,
and 2) all night long it keeps popping open and looking for mice. There
is a similar comic interlude in Shakespeare's "Macbeth."]
Everyone is skeptical that Lugh can help. He shows he can do anything
as well as or better than the other gods. At Nuada's insistence, Lugh
teaches them much of what he knows in preparation for war against the
Fomors. Seven years go by. The Fomors arrive ready to attack. But the
TDD aren't quite ready. They send the Dagda over to the Fomors' camp
to stall for time as a visitor. The Fomors offer a bowl of porridge
to him. He accepts. They've dug a giant pit in the ground and filled
it with porridge. It would be rude for the Dagda not to finish all of
it. So the Dagda took a ladle-like spoon and began eating. He ended
up scraping the dirt out of the bottom of the bowl and eating it too.
But he took his time. This works out well for the TDD.

Before the battle
begins, the Second Sorrow of Storytelling occurs. Cian, father
of Lugh, was carrying on a feud with the sons of
Tuirenn for years. Cian is out gathering men to fight for the
TDD. He sees Brian, Iochar, and Iocharba in the distance. He knows this
means trouble. There is a blood feud between them. He sees several pigs
in the field. He turns himself into a pig to avoid trouble. But the
three brothers have already seen him. They know. Brian turns Iochar
and Iocharba into dogs to root Cian out and corral him off to one side.
Brian turns Iochar and Iocharba back into men and they spear Cian while
he is still a pig. He asks for quarter and they refuse. So he begs them
at least to allow him to become a man again. They agree. Then he demands
they release him on pain of blood fine (family vendetta, his son is
Lugh), but they figure if they kill him now, no one will know that they
have killed him anyway. But he says their weapons will tell. They put
them down. They pick up stones and stone him to death and bury him in
his own depth. The earth throws him back up six times and only keeps
him down the seventh time because of the horror of his murder. Lugh
begins to worry and goes out looking. He passes that field and the stones
cry out about the murder of his father and who did it. He realizes the
cruel murder that has taken place. He returns to Tara and calls everyone
together and demands the blood fine. They must pay him whatever he says
or he will kill them. The three brothers are very frightened. He tells
them he wants three apples, a pigskin, a spear, seven pigs, a cooking
spit, three shouts on a hill, et cetera. They accept his demands.
He then tells them the rest of his demands. The apples are to be the
golden apples of Hesperides (Hercules once went after them as
well). Each of these things is magical and virtually impossible to get.
They finally get the apples. The pigskin will cure anyone. The spear
turns water into wine. The pigs will return once eaten. Eventually they
have gotten every item except the three shouts on a hill. Lugh refused
to let them off. The hill is in Alba owned by a king who has made it
a taboo for any noise to be made. The entire Scottish army comes after
them. All three are mortally wounded. They return but they are dying.
Lugh releases them of the blood fine. They ask if he will use the magic
pig skin to cure them. He says, "My father asked for mercy and
you gave him none. You shall get none." And they die. This is the
Second Sorrow of Storytelling and explains the popularity of the name
Brian.

Now the battle
ensues, champion against champion. Every day the Fomors are confused
because they see TDD who have been wounded or even killed reappear on
the battlefield each day. They send Ruadan, son of Bres and Brigit,
to sneak into the TDD camp. He finds Goibhniu repairing broken weapons
magically overnight. Ruadan sneaks up behind Goibhniu, takes a spear,
and runs him through. Goibhniu pulls out the spear, wheels around and
mortally wounds Ruadan, who staggers back to his camp and dies. Bres
and Brigit are so devastated that they begin mourning. They invent the
high pitched screaming wail known as keening. Goibhniu goes to Diancecht.
He and Airmid are dipping people into a magic spring which instantly
heals. The Fomors sneak over and fill up the pool with rocks. The battle
breaks down into a melee. Pitched open battle. Everyone except Lugh.
He is so valuable that they keep him back behind the lines with bodyguards.
Ogma has great strength. But the Fomors have Balor. Nuada is killed,
as is his wife Macha. Lugh can't stand it. He goes out to face Balor.
The eye is closed but they begin cranking the lid up. But they forgot
about Lugh's sling. Lugh lets a stone fly that goes straight through
the eye and out the back of Balor's head, killing nine other Fomors.
The Fomors are heavily defeated, driven back under the sea. Bres is
spared because he must teach them the rules of planting and harvesting.
So he and Brigit are brought back with the TDD. Then the Milesians appear
and they are driven underground to become gods.

May 1st: Beltaine
("lord of life and death")

Eastra (Frigga),
the Scandinavian goddess of fertility is similar to Beltaine. "Dying
God Theme" - the God of Fertility dies and goes to the Underworld
every autumn, causing the autumn characteristics. He is then reborn
in the spring. Eastra gives out eggs, decorated brightly to represent
spring. She sends out rabbits, which are famously avid reproducers,
as helpers. (The Maypole, another celebration ritual of the rebirth,
is a phallic symbol.) Easter is the first Sunday after the first full
moon after the vernal equinox (March 20 or 21).]

August 1: Lughnasadh
(Harvest Festival or Festival of Lugh) November 1: the beginning of
the Celtic year Samhain [sä' wen] "Mourning of the
End of Summer and for the Dead" February 1: Imbolg (Midwinter's
Festival)

The
Ulster Cycle [Ulster is the northeast quarter of Ireland]

The champions of
Ulster are enormously famous. There are three cycles: Tuatha is the
first. Ulster is the second.

Conchobar
(Connor) - King of Ulster (Conchobar Mac Nessa)

Cathbad
- the Chief Druid, ancestor to a number of great heroes

Bricriu of the
Bitter Tongue - a troublemaker

Aillel/Medh
- King/Queen of Connacht (the northwest quarter). Medh is tall and powerfully
beautiful with long thick blonde hair.

Conall the Victorious
- a hero

Laegaire the
Battlewinner - a hero

Sencha -
a great poet and a great judge

Fergus Mac Rogh
- has the strength of 700 men, tall as a giant. He eats 7 hogs, 7 deer,
7 cows, and drinks 7 vats of mead at each meal. He has a magic sword
called Caladholg. The sword is as long as the rainbow is high
(symb.).

All these characters
are Milesians. But Curoi Mac Daire, the King of Muenster, is
descended from the TDD. He has a castle which spins around every night
so no one can find the door. It is thought to be a tomb. The axe represents
a thunderbolt (standard storm deity). After the age of seven, Curoi
was never in Ireland long enough to eat a meal or fight a battle.

The Queen of the
Kingdom was once Ness. Her first husband died. She marries his
brother Fergus Mac Rogh. She will marry him ONLY if her young son Conchobar
is allowed to reign as king for one year. Fergus agrees. Conchobar rules
brilliantly. The people want him to carry on his reign. Fergus surrenders
the throne to Conchobar. He would rather eat than fight. Conchobar recognizes
that he must invite and retain the greatest warriors in order to make
Ulster great. Knights flock to him (Arthurian).

Aillel and Medh
in Connacht are a periodic source of trouble.

A wedding is planned
between Dechtire (woman) and Sualtam (great warrior chieftain).
They have the wedding feast (before the wedding). Dechtire reaches for
her cup of wine, not seeing that a mayfly has fallen in to it. She drinks
it. She becomes pregnant. She takes a nap and dreams of Lugh, who tells
her he was the mayfly (Archetype: Divine/Immaculate Conception). Dechtire
goes out with her 50 handmaidens and they are all turned into swans.
They fly away. The wedding is postponed. Nine months later, while out
hunting, Conchobar and a hunting party see a flock of birds and follow
it. They get to a cottage where a very handsome tall young man dressed
in green and with a slighjtly green tint to him comes out and welcomes
them to camp. They are awakened by the cry of a newborn baby. The green
man reveals himself as Lugh. He explains that Dechtire has a son called
Setanta.

Sencha proclaims
that the child will be a great hero. Everyone is amazed. The child is
legally adopted by Sualtam but is actually adopted by everyone. They
teach him to be the hero he will be. He is very big, very strong. He
loves to play athletic games with other boys -- the Boys' Army:
boys around the age of 12 were trained to be heroes. Setanta is only
7.

Conchobar is invited
to a feast by Culann the Smith. As Conchobar and his retinue travel,
they pass a field where boys are playing hurley (the Boys' Army vs.
Setanta). It's illegal -- they are playing in secret. Conchobar is impressed.
He invites Setanta to come to the feast. Setanta is honored but he wants
to win first. He offers to meet them at the feast. There is a gigantic
dog outside of Culann's house. It's a famous dog. Culann chains the
dog and invites his guests in asking, "Is this all of you?"
They reply, "Yes." He releases the dog and bars the door.
The dog is as strong as 100 men. Setanta arrives with his stick and
ball. The dog attacks him. He grabs the ball, throws it down the dog's
throat, grabs it by the hind legs, raises it over his head and thrashes
its head to the ground, killing it instantly. Culann is heartbroken.
Setanta says, "Give me the pup from this dog and I will train it
for two years." All that time, he acts as the guard dog for Culann
and takes the name which means "Dog of Culann" -- Cuchulinn,
the hound of Culann, is the greatest hero Ulster ever knew.

He grows to be
a very handsome young man who has the magic sevens. Seven fingers on
each hand, seven toes on each foot, and seven pupils in each eye. His
hair is dark at the roots, red in the middle, and blonde at the ends.
But when he goes into battle, the battle frenzy changes him. He turns
completely around inside his skin so his feet are facing the rear. He
hair stands straight out on end and sparks fly out of every strand.
From the top of his head shoots a pillar of black blood as tall as a
mast. Fire spurts out of his open mouth. One eye protrudes and the other
recedes. And the Heroes Moon appears on his forehead (a protruding vein).

Cuchulinn must
find himself a wife. He wants Emer, the daughter of Forgall,
for she is the most beautiful. But Forgall is wary. He swears loudly
that his daughter will never marry but to one trained by the Amazon
Skathack (a woman warrior and witch). So Cuchulinn vows to go
be trained and to then marry Emer. Skathach lives on an island east
of Alba -- thought to be the Isle of Skye. The two other heroes Laegaire
and Conall accompany him. But they lose heart quickly and return. Cuchulinn
continues on. He must cross the Plain of Ill Luck, a muddy plain
where, as your feet get stuck, razor sharp grass grows up to pierce
them. Lugh appears (Cuchulinn's father) and gives him a wheel of stone
and instructs him to roll it in front of him so that he may cross. He
then goes through the Perilous Glen, filled with devouring animals.
No sweat. He then finds himself facing the Bridge of Leaps which
throws you off as you try to cross it. He resorts to using his Hero's
Salmon's Leap. He leaps as the bridge tries to throw him and lands
safely on the other side. Skathach agrees to teach him the secrets of
being a great warrior. He studies for a year and a day. At which time
she gives him a weapon: Gae Bolg, a spear made from the bones
of sea monsters. It has many forked points and is deadly. Skathach goes
into battle with Aiofe, another woman warrior. Cuchulinn decides
to face Aiofe on her island in Skathach's place. Skathach has fallen
in love with him and doesn't want him to go. She drugs him -- enough
for a day and a night. The effect only lasts for an hour. He goes and
defeats Aiofe. And from that union comes a son. He says to Skathach
before he leaves that if she has a son he places a Geis(e) [GAYSH,
plural GAYSH-uh] on the baby. A Geis is a taboo placed on a person that
they may not EVER break. His son must never tell anyone his name and
must never turn down a battle. The son is Connlach.

Cuchulinn returns
to Ulster, kills Forgall, and takes Emer as a wife. [At one time, Emer
discovers her husband with a mistress and she says, "The new is
always sweet, and the familiar is always stale." Cuchulinn realzes
the wisdom in this, etc.]

Bricriu's
Feast

Bricriu builds
himself a palace so that he can invite all of Ulster's men to a feast.
It takes a year to build. Everyone knows he's up to trouble. They agree
to come only if he will stay in another room. Before they go, Bricriu
takes aside the three heroes one at a time and tells each: "When
you get to the feast, traditionally the champion's portion is given
out first. And because you're the greatest, of course I'll give it to
you." The three argue at the feast. Sencha must intervene and settle
the matter. Bricriu goes to the wives of the heroes and says to each
of them, one at a time: "The first wife who comes back through
the door of the hall will be the wife of the champion." As they're
entering, the three wives act as if nothing is afoot. Eventually, they
grab their skirts up and run. Emer is falling behind, so Chuchulinn
lifts the wall so that she can enter first. When he drops the wall,
it sinks a foot into the ground, setting the house at a tilt. They then
go through a series of tests. Aillel and Medh are asked to judge. Cuchulinn
wins every test hands down. But the other two heroes refuse to accept
it. Three cups are brought in. A bronze cup for Conall, a silver cup
for Laegaire, and a golden one for Cuchulinn. They still refuse to accept
it. A stranger appears. A very brutish-looking fellow carrying a HUGE
axe. He says he's there to join in the games. The game he suggests is
this: "You can take my axe and lop my head off, but then you have
to let me do the same to you." Conall does it. Laegaire, too. The
stranger's body picks up its head and says, "I'll be back tomorrow
for my turn." Only Cuchulinn is brave enough to face him. Curoi
Mac Daire reveals himself. Cuchulinn has won the contest [Sir Gawain
and the Green Knight -- the Beheading Game].

The
Third Sorrow of Storytelling (Dierdre and the Sons of Uisnach)

When Dierdre was
born, Cathbad the Druid predicted she would be the most beautiful woman
and that she would marry a foreign king, but that she would bring ruin
to Ireland. Conchobar said if she would be so beautiful, he would marry
her, and because he isn't foreign, would thus break the prophecy. Her
nurse Lavarcham helped keep ker isolated as she grew up to be
VERY beautiful. In midwinter, she looks out a window and sees a hired
hand who's just killed a calf for dinner. There is blood on the snow.
Ravens come down. She says, "I want a man with those three colors.
Hair as black as the raven, skin as white as the snow, and lips as red
as blood." This is not Conchobar. Lavarcham knows of such a man:
Naoise [na EE see], eldest son of Uisnach. The other sons are
Ardan and Ainle. She falls in love with Naoise on first
sight and he with her. So they flee to Alba. But local kings keep falling
in love with Dierdre, so they have to keep moving. Dierdre, Naoise,
Ardan, and Ainle sit around a lot and play chess. Conchobar makes a
plan. He goes to the heroes (Cuchulinn, Laegaire, and Conall) and asks
what they would do if their king broke his word. Their answer was, "Wreak
havoc -- king or no king." Conchobar goes to Fergus, his uncle
and poses the same question. Fergus responds, "I would stay loyal
-- he is the king." So Conchobar tells Fergus that he would like
him to bring Dierdre, Naoise, Ardan, and Ainle back because he has forgiven
all. Fergus believes him. Conchobar asks Fergus' oath that he will let
nothing interfere with his getting them back. Fergus takes his two sons
Ilann and Buinne [Ilann the Fair and Buinne
the Ruthless Red] with him to Alba. He invites the four back. Dierdre
is sure Conchobar is lying. But Fergus says that Conchobar gave his
word. The four accede, Dierdre protesting. They sail back. Just after
landing, they go through a kingdom and meet a prince who stops them.
The prince had gotten a secret letter from Conchobar. He invites Fergus
to stay for dinner. Fergus is under a geis that he may NEVER refuse
to eat, but he has given an oath to Conchobar that he will bring Dierdre,
Naoise, Ardan, and Ainle back directly. So he sends his two sons. Dierdre
is suspicious. But they go. All the knights stay in Conchobar's castle.
He also has a longhouse called the Red Branch House. They know
if he puts them in the Red Branch House, there will be trouble for them.
Conchobar sends for Lavarcham, who says that Dierdre is no longer beautiful
but actually ugly. A man named Trendhorn says, "Let me go
and see. I'll tell you if she's still beautiful." Trendhorn has
a grudge against Naoise and his brothers. They won't let him in. He
climbs up on the roof (while they're playing chess). He finds a skylight.
Naoise sees him and throws a chess piece, knocking out one of Trendhorn's
eyes. He says to Conchobar, "I got a glimpse of Dierdre, and it
was worth losing my eye." Conchobar wants her. His formidable knights
would never think of helping him in this. So he hires mercenaries. They
attack in waves. Buinne comes out and is hacking them to bits. The king
bribes Buinne, who sells out for a parcel of land (a very sad event).
The moment Buinne sells out, that parcel of land becomes sterile. Ilann
is mortified and lives in shame forever. Angry, killing right and left,
Conchobar's son Fiancha goes into battle and takes Conchobar's
magic shield which will scream anytime the bearer is in danger. Ilann
engages Fiancha in battle. Ilann is clearly winning. Conall the Victorious
hears the king's shield screaming and assumes the king is in danger.
He draws his sword and kills Ilann, realizing too late who it is. He
wheels around and decapitates Fiancha on the spot. But Ilann is gone.
Conchobar recognizes his defeat. He calls Cathbad and asks him to cast
a glamour to get Dierdre, Naoise, Ardan, and Ainle out. But he's a good
man. Conchobar must give his word he will not harm the four before Cathbad
accedes. Everyone inside thinks a flood hit and they make their way
out swimming under water. The mercenaries grab them and tie them up.
And Conchobar orders their execution. No one will perform the task.
Not even the mercenaries. Finally Trendhorn (a Norwegian) volunteers
because he hates them so much. Each wants to be the first to die. Trendhorn
lines them up and, with one blow, decapitates them all. Conchobar takes
Dierdre to be his wife. She refuses to speak to him or touch him. But
the prophecy came true anyway. And Conchobar is ready to give her up.
She's in a chariot one day and she leaps out and bashes her head against
a rock and dies. Fergus, furious, leaves and goes to Connacht. Dierdre
is recognized as the saddest woman who ever lived. She did nothing to
deserve her misery. Dierdre = "sadness."

The
Story of Macha the Triple Goddess

Macha comes to
a farmer because she loves him. They marry on the condition that he
must never tell anyone who she is. They're very happy until he goes
into the town (feudal castle) of Conchobar. They are having horse races
and chariot races. Everyone is crowing about how great the winner is.
The farmer boasts that his wife could beat the winner -- in fact she
could beat the horses. Conchobar sends for Macha, who is just about
to give birth. She must prove herself or they will kill her husband.
She's angry. She steps in front of a chariot, grabs the traces, and
wins. She then falls by the road and gives birth. She is furious. She
places a curse on everyone that anytime they are in peril, they will
be weaker than she in birth. Then she disappears. This is the curse
of Macha (they pass out for four and a half days or something).

Cattle
Raid of Culaigne

Mebh and Aillel
are boasting about what they each own (as king and queen of Connacht).
Everything is even except that Aillel owns a prized magic white bull.
Mebh (the witch queen) does NOT like it. She knows that, in an area
of Ulster called Culaigne, a fellow owns a prized brown bull. She sends
a deputation over to borrow the bull for a year. The owner is perfectly
amenable and even feeds the messengers. The messengers are drinking
and boasting that, even if he hadn't agreed, they would have taken the
bull. At this, the fellow refuses. Mebh marches in war against Ulster.
Everyone immediately passes out except Cuchulinn -- he is the son of
a god. He employs guerilla tactics against the oncoming army, keeping
them away. Every stone he throws kills someone. Every day, Mebh sends
out heroes to be defeated by Cuchulinn. They make a deal that they may
march only when he is not fighting. Fergus meets Cuchulinn. They agree
to make it look as if he has won -- they take turns. Macha is attracted
to him. He turns her down cold. He has so many wounds that he has to
put twigs under his clothes to keep them off his skin. Lugh comes and
puts him to sleep for 24 hours and cures him. The Boys' Army (exempt
from the curse) comes out to face Mebh's army for the full 24 hours
until every one of them is dead. Cuchulinn's stepfather Sualtam
had been away. He returns, takes Cuchulinn's horse and races back to
Ulster to try to rouse everyone. The horse is called the Grey
of Macha, a big powerful mare. He gets to the castle, reigns the
horse in, and it stops INSTANTLY, causing him to decapitate himself
with his shield. The head rolls in screaming, "Wake up!" The
bull is eventually taken, but the white bull and the brown bull kill
one another in the corral.

Cuchulinn meets
a young man who is doing battle with and defeating all the local warriors.
He won't say who he is. Cuchulinn challenges the warrior to battle.
The young man has a geis on him, forcing him to accept the challenge.
Cuchulinn thinks he's in danger. He ducks down and, with the Gaebolg
spear, comes up under his challenger's shield and skewers him. "I
am Cuchulinn," he says. "Who are you?" The challenger
replies, "I am Connlach, your son." Cuchulinn had placed him
under the very geis -- never tell your name, never turn down a battle.

Mebh gathers together
huge armies planning to attack Ulster. Especially families in enmity
with Cuchulinn. (The Curse of Macha was broken in the Cattle Raid.)
Cuchulinn sees omens of all sorts. He is lured out to a large plain
where he sees three old hags who offer him food. He cannot refuse. He
eats. Only then they tell him that he has eaten roast hound. But he
is under a geis never to do that. His left side becomes paralyzed. As
he is riding back, he sees a woman washing laundry which becomes redder
and redder. This is a bad omen of his own blood. He takes a cup of wine
and sips, only to find that it is blood. He sees the Grey of Macha weeping
-- the tears are blood. He takes three spears. Cathbad says they will
kill three kings. He has a charioteer who has bright red hair, white
skin, freckles, and blue eyes. He is the greatest chariotee in the land.
They go to battle Mebh's army. They come to some druids who are with
Mebh's army, who challenge him to stop and threaten him. Cuchulinn takes
a spear and kills one of them. The second grabs the spear, throws it
back, and kills Cuchulinn's charioteer (the "king" of all
charioteers). The second spear kills the second druid. The last druid
throws it back, killing the Grey of Macha (the "king" of all
horses). The horse races off into the army, killing 50 men with each
hoof and 100 with its teeth before it dies. Cuchulinn throws the thrid
spear and kills the third druid who, before he dies, throws the spear
back, mortally wounding Cuchulinn (the "king" of all warriors).
Cuchulinn goes into a battle frenzy. He backs up to a large stone, and
using his belt to keep from falling over, he wraps himself against the
stone and raises his arm with his sword and waits and dies. Lugaid
(a scoundrel) from Mebh's army sees the hero's light go out. He goes
up to cut off his head, but he jars the body and the arm falls and lops
off his hand. In a fury, he cuts Cuchulinn's head off with his left
hand. Conall had made a pact with Cuchulinn to avenge his death. Conall
hunts down Lugaid that day and kills him so he can't boast of taking
Cuchulinn's head.

Years later, on
Easter Sunday, Conchobar hears what happened to Christ and he swings
his arms around and his heart bursts and he dies.

Succat (father
was Roman living in Britain, right outside the Welsh border)

Succat grew up
in Wales, the son of a Roman. When he was 16, he was captured by pirates
and taken to Ireland, sold as a slave. He worked for six years as a
shepherd and a swineherd. one night he had a dream/vision that he was
going to return home, that a ship was ready, and where to go. He walked
200 miles and found a ship all rigged and ready to go. He sailed home.
Later (in his mid-twenties), he went to Gaul. He studied Christianity,
and changed his name to Patrick (400's A.D.). He became a priest,
then a bishop. The Church sent him to Ireland, but he knew to go already
because he had gotten a letter from an angel named Victor, saying that
Ireland needed him. There was great opposition from the druids, etc.
He never left Ireland again. 461 493 A.D. He spent 32 years in Ireland.
He drove all the snakes from Ireland. When he came, there were no Christians;
when he died, there were no more pagans. He once made a fire out of
ice and snow. He built 385 churches with schools (it is more likely
that he converted Druidic colleges). He died on March 17th. The green
is an association with spring and the green of Ireland. Shamrocks represent
the Trinity. Clay pipes associate him with the common folk and leprechauns.
He is considered the great saint of Ireland, although he was Roman and
Welsh.

St. Brendan

St. Brigit

King
Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table

The REAL Arthur:
England was invaded and conquered by Rome in 55 B.C. It was occupied
until 410 A.D. The Romans settled into Britain, took wives, had children,
etc. Roman names were used by the soldiers, still fond of their heritage.
The Romans were called back in 410 to defend the Empire. They left Britain
undefended. Then came the Picts. The Britons were helpless. They sent
to Germany and asked the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes (all Germanic tribes)
to bring troops in to suppress the Picts. These tribes succeeded in
staving off the Picts. But then they wouldn't leave. A new war broke
out between the Britons and these Germanic tribes. From 480-500 A.D.,
there was a 20-year lull. Peace was made. But the Britons stood back
warily. In 520, war broke out again. The Angles, Saxons, and Jutes won
a decisive victory, driving out many Britons to Brittany (France). The
Jutes settled in Kent (in the southeast). The Angles and Saxons absorbed
and were absorbed by the remaining Britons. In the late 500's, some
form of history (in Welsh) called the "Annals of British History"
was written. Battles and wars were discussed. A name was mentioned:
Arcturus (Latin). He was called a Dux Bellorum (battle leader,
general). Arcturus was a young Roman who had learned Roman military
tactics and stayed in Britain. He supplied the genius to fight the Germans
in between eight and twelve different battles, all of which he won.
A battle in 500 A.D. resulted in a decisive defeat against the Germans.
The Battle of Camlann (520 A.D.), Arcturus and Medraut
fell. The Germans won. There were many unanswered questions. This is
the progeny of the story of Arthur and Mordred as enemies in
the Battle of Camelot. Various little references to Arthur became
common. A monk claimed to have found the grave of Arthur. ("Here
lies Arthur, the one time king and the future king" -- the Once
and Future King). He supposedly dug him up. The bones were taken to
a cathedral in Glastonbury. Someone said they found a stone with a pawprint
(made by Arthur's magic dog). Around this time, stories began.

Arthur and Mordred
are linked. Guinevere, Arthur's queen. 1136 Geoffrey of Monmouth
wrote "Historia Regum Britoniae" -- History of the Kings of
Britain. Ambrosius -- king over Merlin. Merlin magically
set up Stonehenge. It purports to be the history of the kings of Britain,
but it is really pure Geoffrey of Monmouth. He takes tremendous license.

The irony is that
Arthur would not have stood for England -- he fought for the Britons
against the Angles.

Poems were written.
Then in France, the Arthurian cycle caught on (because all they had
was Charlemagne). c. 1160, the Round Table and the Knights have been
fabricated. And much has been written. In France, at this time, (12th
century) much that had been brewing is coming to a head. Chivalry and
courtly love suddenly fluorished (had been prepared for). Their minstrels
were primarily Bretons. Minstrels catered to the woman of the house
because she decided their pay. Guinevere takes a lover outside of her
home because this man is so passionately crazy about her that its worthwhile.
(Courtly love = illicit) The Church (in a grand coup) came out with
a law saying it is a sin to enjoy sex with your spouse (it should pe
purely for propagation) -- this seemed to promulgate the efficacy of
adultery. Women began to get into this. Marriages were arranged as business
ventures. Some very powerful French women trained men to be grand COURTLY
lovers. Eleanor of Aquitaine and Marie of Champagne opened
this school, hired textwriters, etc.

In Rome, Ovid
was a writer who wrote much humor. Manual (i.e., book of instruction)-writing
was taken very seriously. So Ovid wrote -- as a joke -- a manual called
"The Art of Love." Because love was considered to be unimportant
and inconsequential. Eleanor and Marie took this satire to be holy word.
They hired a man to update this to "The Art of Courtly Love":
Chrétien de Troyes (Christian of Troy), a writer
of French romances (poetic novels). He was the best. c. 1160, recognized
the value of the influx of material on Arthur from England. Used heroes
and characters in his romances. He was a great writer. So influential
that Eleanor and Marie commissioned him to write a romance in keeping
with courtly love -> "The Knight of the Cart." One day,
when Arthur is at home with his court, a strange knight challenges any
knight to a joust. If he wins, he can have anything he wants -- and
what he wants is Guinevere. Sir Gawayne wasn' there. Arthur was
wary. Sir Chay, his boyhood friend, demands as a return of favor
to be allowed to joust. Chay loses (handily), so the knight rides off
with Guinevere. Sir Gawayne returns and is furious. He is the greatest
knight of the realm. He resolves to bring Guinevere back. A junior knight
begs to go along. Gawayne agrees. The junior gallops off at top speed.
He rides his horse to death. Gawayne gives him a pack horse. This guy
ADORES Guinevere. They come to a brook to water their horses. The junior
knight finds Guinevere's comb in the grass. He clasps it to his breast
and passes out. Gawayne can't believe it. He comes to, sees a long golden
hair on the comb, and passes out again. They come to a village. A dwarf
says he'll tell them where to find Guinevere only if they'll ride through
the town in his cart (a humiliating thing -> execution). They reach
a raging river. The bridge is a huge sword turned on edge. Gawayne will
ford the river but he is swept away temporarily. The junior knight makes
it across the sword bridge. Finally, he is in the courtyard "fighting"
the abductor but he sees Guinevere and can't take his eyes off her.
She says to her lady-in-waiting that he'll be killed. She advises her
to tell him. Yes, but who is he? Sir Lancelot. She advises him.
He turns around to fight and watch her at the same time. (Chrétien
quits here in disgust with the mush -- completed by another author).
The satire became taken seriously. Lancelot du Lac becomes a
famous character.

Courtly love
= an illicit affair between a noble, courteous, gentile bachelor knight
and a married lady. It is never consummated (on paper). It should be
at a distance. The man is slave to a cold-hearted woman who loves him
in secret.

Ulrich,
a German knight in love with his neighbor's wife, courted her openly.
He serenaded her, sent love messages -- for two years. Then he went
on horseback across Europe for several months dressed as Aphrodite.
He made everyone say that the object of his affection was the most beautiful
woman -- even though they hadn't seen her. So he jousted. And when all
was said and done, he had broken 300 lances. Upon his return, her husband
died. They married, and within six months he was courting another.

In France, other
writers used "The Knight of the Cart" as a springboard. There
was a problem. Sir Gawayne was great. Lancelot was a nobody. They had
to do a little balancing act to turn Lancelot into the greatest knight.
Suppress one; embellish the other. This took several centuries. But
in France, Lancelot became number one. In England, Lancelot was ignored.
Gawayne was not dedicated to any one woman. He had many affairs, because
courtly love had not yet caught on. Once Gawayne fell in love and married.
His wife died after two years. He is the hero in England.

In 1460, a man
is placed in jail for rape for a while (Sir Thomas Malory). In
jail (across from a library), he reads French stories of Arthur. So
he opted for the French tale when he wrote Le Morte d'Arthur.
He felt there was no way to explain the fall of Camelot without corruption
in the court. Thus, the consummated love affair between Lancelot and
Guinevere. This established the new bent for the story of Arthur. Malory
only codified -- he invented virtually nothing.

Arthur.
As a king, he is patterned after Conchobar of Ulster. He gathers the
greatest knights of the realm to come to his court (Camlann -> Camelot).
The idea of the round table came circa 1140, between Geoffrey Monmouth
and Chrétien. Traditionally, the greatest knight sits at the
right of the king. Roundness does away with this dilemma. They are all
the greatest knights. Lancelot and Galahad never existed before
the poetic romance. Arthur had the image of the Virgin Mary on his shield
or back plate of armor in the last battle he won. (The
Story of Dierdre and the Sons of Uisnach inspired the Arthur-Guinevere-Lancelot
tale.) It was once said, "Guinevere was a very beautiful lady who
had a bad habit of being run off with." It was an arranged marriage.
It was the greatest blow for Arthur to discover that his best friend
was the one with his wife -- it was really Lancelot he cared about.
(In the English version, Guinevere runs off with Mordred and takes over
the kingdom.) Arthur is killed as he is killing. He is killing Mordred,
and Mordred is killing him back. He behaved as badly as Conchobar when
he found out about Guinevere. Sir Gawayne is the most colorful character.
He is not shackled by marriage. He defeats every single person he challenges
without exception. (Based on Cuchulinn -- also unfaithful -- through
the Welsh). Gawayne is believed to be a kind of solar deity. His strength
increases until noon and then wanes. (He falls in love with a woman
named Lunette, or "Little Moon".) He is the nephew
of Arthur (always the favorite over sons). He is big, light-haired,
light-eyed, powerful, handsome. But he has faults. He is a very popular
character. He starred in Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight ->
"Evil to Him Who Evil Think" (later assumed by the real Knights
of the Garter). Sir Gawayne eventually split into his four brothers.
Gawayne rides the only horse with a name, Gringolet. Gringolet
is a dappled grey horse with red ears, associated with Faerie (from
the Grey of Macha).

Lailoken
(Scottish cycle of stories), madman who lived in the forest Cairmarthen
on the border of Scotland. "Bad man of the forest." He is
a sorceror magician. The Britons had to move south because of the Angles.
They took these stories with them. The Welsh liked the stories. In and
around Wales, they interpreted Cairmarthen as The Mound (Caer) of
Myrddin -> assumed this to be his name. Influence of Cathbad
and Diancecht, assumed he was the magician
of that cycle. When that cycle became a part of Arthurian legend, this
was thought to be the name of the court wizard. Geoffrey of Monmouth
turned Myrddin into a magician under Ambrosius and eventually
under Arthur himself. He set up Stonehenge, etc. Arthur's story moved
to France and then back to Britain. The British expanded it even more.
The cycle is known as "The Matter of Britain" (Matter of Rome
-- Ancient Rome, Matter of France -- Charlemagne). Changed Myrddin to
Myrlin because of the auditory similarity to the French "merd."

Lailoken is not
associated with the court. In his 60s or 70s, he fell in love with a
14 year-old girl called Nimue -- an entrancing girl. She becomes
his beloved on the condition that he teach her everything he knows.
He taught her for several years. At the end of the time, she used his
magic against him. She lured him sexually into a cave and then sealed
him into it so he could never escape. (Tennyson calls her "Vivian.")
[Sir Gawayne is out riding and hears Merlin's voice. Gawayne tells what
has happened.] With Arthur, Morgan Lafey
is a close relation (Lafey = the Fairy) of Arthur's. A sister, sister-in-law,
or cousin. She has much power. She wants to bring ruin to Arthur's Camelot.
Comes from the Welsh Morgana (of battle and of good and bad fortune),
who comes from Morrigu. Morgan is behind the beheading game for
Sir Gawayne. It is rumored that Morgan put Nimue up to the whole plot
with Merlin. Morgan becomes attached in this cycle to Mordred (Medraut
-> Mordred/Modred), who fell at the Battle of Camlann. This legend
becomes inherently evil. A bastard nephew of Arthur's father.

Illegitimacy is
why Mordred is always angry and evil. He is also a very powerful warrior.
When he and Arthur meet, they kill each other. Mordred is always the
dark figure. He is plotting constantly. He represents the powers of
darkness in all the stories.

Sir Kay
(first in Geoffrey Monmouth's history) a boyhood acquaintance of Arthur,
who was brought up by Kay's father. He is Arthur's companion knight.
An excellent foil -> he loses all the time. He needs to be saved
or accounted for. Human weakness is necessary for the stories. Too superficial.

Sir Bedevere
(the Butler), which comes from "bottler" or wine steward.
Ever-faithful servant to Arthur. Bedevere is there as Arthur dies. He
requires that he take Excalibur to the lake and throw it in. Arthur
asks what he saw. Bedevere said nothing. Arthur knew he lied. A second
time, Bedevere said a monster came. Once again, Arthur knew he was lying.
On the third time, Bedevere told Arthur that a hand came out of the
water and drew the sword under. Finally, Arthur knew that Bedevere had
done as he had asked.

Instead of dying,
a boat from the lake with beautiful maidens, takes him and they sail
away to Faerie -- an island. The Isle of Glass/Avalon. Arthur and all
his knights are sleeping in a cave on Avalon and will come to Britain's
rescue if needed.

Lancelot du
Lac - son of King Bann of Benwick. imported from France.
He is the epitome of the great knight, and was made so in France. He
catches Guinevere's eye. They ruin their courtly love affair by having
a physical consummation -- for quite some time. He is a knight errant,
i.e., he wanders aimlessly in search of adventure. Lancelot decided
to be errant for a while. He stays with a friendly king who has a beautiful
daughter who falls in love with him. The king casts a spell, causing
Lancelot to forget Guinevere and fall in love with Elaine. Lancelot
marries Elaine. Their union produces a son. After two years, Lancelot
snaps out of the spell and is furious with the king. He leaves Elaine
and his son. Elaine commits suicide. Her father raises the son, who
goes to Camelot and is knighted: Sir Galahad, who is seated to
Arthur's left (Siege Perilous). This seat is deadly. Only one
who is totally pure could sit there. Galahad succeeded in surviving
the test. He is PURE. Too pure. He is the youngest of the knights. Tennyson's
Idylls of the King includes a poem about Galahad: "My good
sword carves the casks of men, my tough lance thrusteth sure. My strength
is as the strength of ten, because my heart is pure." He is always
a blond, beardless youth. Celibate. He isn't very much fun. He does
get to do one thing...

Final story: King
Mark of Cornwall, castle Tintagel at the southwest corner
of Britain. Tintagel on small peninsula. His nephew was Tristan.
Loyal knight. Greatest in his area. Mark wanted a bride. Heard about
Princess Iseult in Ireland. Wanted Tristan to go and fetch her
for him. Mark wasn't sure she'd care for him. Sent a nurse with a love
potion which would cause her to fall in love with the first person she
sees. Tristant and Iseult accidentally drank it together and instantly
fell in love, (in the original story, they fell in love on their own),
making them blameless. She still has to marry Mark, who is very jealous.
Convinced they are carrying on an affair, which they are not. His jealousy
drives them together. The affair was consummated (more than once). Iseult
says she will undergo trial by ordeal to prove her innocence (a red
hot iron will or will not burn). Tristan disguises himself as a pilgrim
in priestly robes. She trips, he catches her. She swears she hasn't
been in any one's arms but his -- except the pilgrim who has just saved
me. She isn't burned. But Mark exiles Tristan. Once Mark is out hunting
and he stops and finds the two of them lying beside each other with
Tristan's razor sharp sword lying between them. Mark is mollified for
a while. Ultimately, Mark arranges to have Tristan assassinated. Tristan
marries. Iseult of the White Hands. Tristan is fatally wounded
by the assasin but knows Iseult can cure him. He asks to send for her.
Stipulation: if she is going to come and cure me, put up the white sails.
If she refuses, make the sails black. His wife is jealous. She lies
and tells him the sails are black. He rolls over and dies. Iseult arrives
and lies down beside him and dies. Similar to the story of Theseus
and Aegeus.

(Peredur, Perceval,
Perlesvaus) -> Sir Percival (Gawayne, Percival, and Tristan
were originally the most important of the knights -> later Lancelot
and Galahad) Percival was the son of a woman with a husband and two
sons, all three were killed while she was pregnant with Percival. She
raised Percival without a word about knighthood. She kept him as a country
bumpkin. One day, he was out in the field and five armed knights came
and asked for a drink of water. Once he saw them, he knew it was his
calling. He told his mother that he had to become a knight. She was
against it, but he was adamant. His mother said to be sure to worship
and keep holy. At one point, Percival comes to a pavilion tent thinking
it's a temple. He goes in and sees a beautiful woman sleeping. He kisses
her and leaves. Her husband suspects something's amiss and beats her
mercilessly. But Percival goes on his way. He is almost laughed out
of the court (when he left, his mom fainted, but he went on undeterred).

A red knight has
been charging up and down outside of Camelot. Percival defeats him easily
takes his armor. Some people in the court take pity and teach him what
he needs to know.

Older man/knight,
sort of fatherly, takes him under his wing. He says: "If you want
to do well, keep silent. Don't ask questions. You'll learn more."
He came to an old man fishing. The man invites him home for dinner.
The old man is there, king and lord of the castle. But he has a problem.
He has been pierced through both legs with a spear (called the Fisher
King). Percival doesn't say anything. People come through carrying
things: 1) a lance with one drop of blood on the end of it, 2) a candelabra,
3) a jeweled compote dish, called a GRAIL with a single wafer
in it (holy -> called a "host"), 4) a carving plate. The
fisher is in immense pain; his old wounds are still bleeding. Percival
goes to sleep. He wakes up and the place is magically deserted -- unlived
in for a long time. He goes on his way. He has a few adventures. He
gets back to Arthur's court and is knighted (he has defeated over 60
opponents by this time). A woman comes in and rails at him for not bothering
to ask about the Fisher King. There was an old man and another man in
another room: the Fisher King's father. His simply asking would have
healed them both. Another woman comes in and says the reason he didn't
know any better because he had been cruel to his mother who had died.
Result: the knights realize they should go and try to find the Fisher
King. But he has learned pity and humility. He becomes a GREAT knight.
This evolves into the legend of the Holy Grail. Later, the knights
are portrayed not seeking the Fisher King but the Grail itself. It was
supposed to have been used by Christ and the Last Supper then given
to Joseph of Arimathea who caught the blood of Christ in the grail and
then went to England, which is of course why it's there. All the knights
but one fail in this quest. (Galahad gets to see it -- Gawayne and Percival
are said to have seen it in a vision). Lancelot never got to see it
because he did NASTY things.

Around 1910, Jessie
Weston (a female scholar) used to point out that the lance and the
grail were male and female phallic symbols. Could be distantly related
to the Dagda's Cauldron -> Bran's magic drinking horn (horn in Latin
is "cornu"; the host is the body of Christ "cors/corse"
-> mistranslated?).

The Quest for the
Holy Grail becomes a Christian core to the Arthurian legends. It doesn't
really fit very well. The Siege Perilous is a spin off on the Stone
of Fal.

King Arthur's weapon
having a name is odd. But he also has a spear called Ron (exactly
like Lugh's spear). Arthur Pendragon, son of Uther Pendragon (= "son
of the dragon"). Because Arthur is said to have been taken to the
Isle of Glass, many believe this to be Glastonbury which has a hill
called the Glastonbury Tor, which often appeared as an island because
of marshes at the foot.

The
Legend of Robin Hood

In English literature
-> allegory -- extended metaphor. E.g., Piers Plowman c. 1377
written in alliteration, has a line: "I ken not perfectly my paternoster"
-- First mention of Robin Hood -- in contrast to the Paternoster. Well-known
even by then. c. 1400 "The Geste of Robin Hood."

Robyn Hode

Robyn and his men
are already in the forest. They stop a knight and ask if he has money.
He has £200. He owes £400 to the Abbott of Saint Mary's,
who will take his home and his sister. Robyn lends him the additional
£200. The Abbott is shocked and dismayed that the knight has come
up with the sum. Then a monk of Saint Mary's is stopped in the forest.
Robyn asks if he has money. The monk says no. Robyn says, "Oh,
then you can go -- but let's search anyway." They find £800
and take it because he had said it wasn't his.

Little John
wins an archery contest. They capture the Sheriff of Nottingham.
They let him go on his promise that he won't persecute them. he breaks
his word. He devises a trap of an archery contest for Robyn. They find
refuge at the home of the first knight Sir Richard of the Lee
(lea -> meadow). The Sheriff catches Richard. Robyn rescues him,
and then kills the Sheriff. Twenty-two years later, Robyn goes to visit
his cousin the princess at a convent. She has a secret lover who hates
Robyn Hode and points out that he looks like he's not feeling well.
She can fix him up. She bleeds him to death. There is no Maid Marian.
At the end of the story, he shoots an arrow to mark his grave. They
fought with bows and swords; no quarter staffs, no lances. Only Edward,
Our Comely King is mentioned. No Richard. No John. No mention of
his being a Saxon or fighting the Normans. They were not social rebels
in any way. Robyn was not a knight, earl, or noble -- he was a yeoman
(of the working class/a foot soldier). There was no robbing of the rich
to give to the poor. Robyn gives advice: There are only two kinds of
people to rob -- bishops and archbishops.

Robin Hood,
Adam Bell, Clim of Clough, William of Cloudsley.
Referred to in the 1400s (he had been around before). The Forest of
Inglewood, living off the King's deer. The Sheriff is after them constantly.
They are very good at outwitting him and the law. They have a battle.
Wil is captured and taken to town. A gallows is erected for him. A small
peasant boy runs to tell Adam and Clim. They manage to disguise themselves,
trick their way into town, and shoot the sheriff, rescue Wil and get
back to the Forest. Band, the forest, illegal life, bow and arrow, disguise,
sheriff, rescue -> Robin Hood. Other stories were similar. Outlaws
in the forests. All masters of disguise. Skilled with weapons. To lure
an aristocrat into the woods, capture and release. Demand to know how
much money he has. If the person lies, they steal the money. Always
yeomen. Traditionally, Robin Hood was in Nottinghamshire in Sherwood
Forest. According to early stories, however, Robin Hood was more in
Barnsdale (north of Nottingham -- southwest Yorkshire). Story of the
forest arose because of a feud with the Sheriff.

c. 1330 or 1220,
believed to be origin (too late for Richard and John). Very near Barnsdale
c. 1400-50 figure known as Robert Hode ("Robin" = French
and English nickname for Robert). Surname "Robynhode" appears
in the same region. Legends always founded in fact but become exaggerated.

India

Indus Valley (origin
of "Indo" part of Indo-European language). c. 2000-1000 B.C.
Europeans came into the Indus Valley. They began to migrate, some to
future Persia; the rest to future Hindu India. They spoke Sanskrit.
Northern India (fairer because of European ancestry) leads to interesting
parallels to Hindu and Celtic stories.

Varuna,
epithet "The All-Encompassing One." The night sky. An ANCIENT
god. He had originally created the universe using 1) his creative will
and 2) the sun. Eventually he branches out. He has 1,000 eyes (stars)
or a single powerful one (the sun). He represents cosmic order and therefore
law. Varuna is omniscient but just (if severe). He carried a rope with
him to bind sinners and sometimes represents the crimes of a person
-- strength of the rope commensurate with the number of sins. After
centuries, Varuna became part of a triad. Varuna = guardian of night.
Mitra(s) = guardian of the day. Aryaman = ? [(no
idea) but the same name in Persia means malevolent god of evil].

Indians changed
their gods periodically. This triad was replaced eventually by another.
The second triad is called "The Great Triad of the Vedic Gods":
Agni, Surya, Indra

Agni - god
of fire. The name appears via Roman in "ignite", etc. Said
to be the youngest of the three gods. Personifies 1) sun, 2) lightning,
3) sacrificial fire. Three kinds of fire. Indians and Persians believe
sacrifical fire arrived here by lightning of the sun, so earthbound
fire is an extension of the sun itself. During sacrifices to him, worshippers
can put meat and clarified butter into the flame. He purifies it to
eat. In Persia, clarified butter -- but NOTHING else - must be put on
the fire to make it sacred. Anything else would constitute contamination.
Whoever contaminates the sacred flame is buried alive. In India, the
fire will purify anything. Agni carries a bow and arrow (representing
lightning). He has red skin on his arms and legs, golden hair (3 legs,
7 arms, 2 faces, 7 tongues). He rides in a bright shining chariot with
banners of black smoke. The two faces suggest two forms of fire and
being able to move in two directions. He is a very friendly god. Spoken
to in personal terms (like a friend) in ritual. He really liked Soma
(a muscle-relaxantdrug -- a drink, pale amber fluid, sacred -- personified
into a god).

Surya -
very divine. Sun god. Has golden hair, golden skin. Rides in a chariot
drawn by seven red mares or a seven-headed red mare. "The Eye of
Varuna" (epithet), also "The Eye of Mitras." Source of
great stability, security and permanence. Called "The Measurer,"
set boundaries. Looked upon in a mystical way. "Stimulated the
mind of man" to creativity, deep pensive though, etc.

Indra -
comical character (similar to Thor). A rival of
Varuna for a long time. [When the Indo-Europeans came into India, they
wanted to stay segregate from the locals -- used a class system ->
caste system: Brahmin, Kshatriya (warriors, nobles). Varuna
was the patron god of the Brahmin, and Indra of the Kshatriya. Thus
the power feud.] Indra has golden skin, red beard (warrior god). Throne
in a storm cloud. Golden chariot with tawny horses (palominos). Wears
the sky as his helmet. Four weapons: 1) a common spear and Chakra
- metal ring, razor sharp on the outside, blunt on the inside, works
like a discus, Ankus (elephant goad - see figure) six or seven
feet long and razor sharp, Vajra - represents a lightning bolt
(three pronged on either end). Indra is very warlike. He is generous
to his followers (a necessary adjunct to warrior leaders). The clouds
are his cattle. He guards them (and the cattle of humans, as well).
Indra loves Soma and women beyond anything in the universe -- anytime
and in vast excess quantities. He can't just take a drink of Soma. He
must become falling down drunk (representing earthquakes) and will have
liaisons with ANY woman. He is comparable to Thor. Indra is the son
of Dyaus and Prithivi (the whole triad is/are). At birth, Indra drinks
Soma to ready himself for battle. He always does this. As an adult god,
he kills his father Dyaus for his inheritance, which is Soma. He does
not want to wait. He takes the Soma and becomes powerful and separates
his father from his mother with his hands (separation of the sky from
the earth -- archetypal). He must go out and face the demon of drought
Vritra who causes drought because he is a great dragon of the waters.
He imprisons the waters, pens them up. Indra must win to release the
water. This takes place every year at the end of summer.

Danava(s)
- unpleasant and malevolent beings (Vritra is one of them). But the
word means "children of Danu." Aditra(s) - more neutral
(Varuna is one).

(3) Rakshasa(s)
- demons, mostly deformed, many ghouls, misanthropes (ghoul - breaks
open new grave and cannibalizes -> an eater of the dead)

Tvashtri
- artisan of the Vedic gods. Created Indra's weapons starting with the
Vajra. Also contains concepts of creativity and abundance. He gives
fertility to humanity. Has the bowl of Soma that Indra steals in order
to fight Vritra. Soma - a vague god who has the characteristics of the
drink. He is said to be a moon god (because of his color). He is a source
of physical strength, inspiration, immortality. Artisan of the gods,
had the bowl of the source of immortality for the gods (like Goivniu).
Occasionally, Soma is thought of as a food (called Amrita) instead
of a drink (-> ambrosia/nectar). He is also the source of military
inspiration (like mead). When drunk by humans in the underworld, it
gives them immortality.

Dushan -
wonder-working god who feeds and invigorates, source of food, carries
a spear or awl, rides in a chariot drawn by goats. He has no teeth.
He only eats porridge.

Shiva -
comes from a pre-Indic pair of gods: Rudra and Agni. Rudra,
the red god (before Persia and India split) of storms, lightning, cattle,
and medicine. Lives in the mountains. Shiva usually wears a breech cloth,
body smeared with ashes (mountain hermit, ascetic). He has a third eye
with a crescent around it in the middle of his forehead. His headdress
is made of venomous serpents. His hair is a tangled mess (third eye
sometimes shown in his hair). He wears a necklace of human skulls. Sometimes
shown with five faces. Four arms. The third eye represents a lightning
bolt, the most powerful weapon of the gods. [Note: most of the gods
have four or more arms.] He is also the god of dance. He is often shown
dancing on the back of a demon. One couldn't show motion with statues.
Multiple arms created the illusion of motion. Shiva has a white face
(ashen), tiger skin over his shoulder in cold areas of the country.
he has a blue throat. He hangs out in graveyards or battlefields or
in the highest mountains of the Himalayas. He inherits the fertility
aspect ("Lord of the Beasts") from Rudra. He is a demonslayer.
Distributor of the seven holy rivers that flow out from the Ganges.
He is often shown in art with a river splitting on his head.

Brahma and Vishnu
one day meet and realize they've met beside a huge stone column, the
top of which they can't see nor can they see the bottom. They've never
seen it before. One goes up. one goes down to see where it goes. They
both get exhausted and can't find the ends. They are both mystified.
Then it disappears and Shiva shows up. They tell him and he listens
then laughs. He demonstrates somehow that the column was in fact his
erect phallus.

Shiva has some
consorts. Primarily Devi. [Note: Hindus believe in reincarnation,
but lovers will be lovers eternally.] Devi - originally a kind of earth
mother goddess, but later she becomes solely identified with Shiva.
-> Durga - name taken from a demon she slew, created solely
to kill demons, fierce beautiful woman with ten arms, riding a tiger.
Kali - also kills demons, called black earth mother, has black
skin and tusks, fangs, a third eye, and blood smeared all over her face
from demon-killing, a necklace of alternating snakes and skulls. her
tongue hangs to the ground.

Brahma,
the Creator God. He has red skin, four arms, four heads (he had five,
but lost one), rides a white goose. He once created a consort for himself.
She was very beautiful. He fell in love with her instantly. His steady
gaze embarrassed her. As she tried to move away in different directions,
new heads popped up, leaving him with five heads altogether. Shiva appears
and lops off the fifth, leaving four.

Avatar,
Samsara, Kharma
Hindus believe in Samsara = "incarnation." The appearance
in the flesh is the avatar, and the actual role is Kharma.
It is not a pleasant thing to come back. Life was difficult. But a person
must keep coming back and work off the wrongs he has committed. The
next form under human is the cow (which is why they do not kill cows
in India). Kharma is the debt owed. Once it is paid off, you can pass
into oblivion.

Vishnu -
Vishnu's skin is blue. He has four hands and rides a huge white bird
with a human face called Garuda. Gods and demons are constantly waging
war. Vishnu must assure the demons don't get the upper hand and offset
the balance of the universe. He has had nine avatars and has one still
coming.

1st avatar: Manu was fishing. Vishnu
showed up as a fish (source of the word "man") who is caught
by Manu. The fish says, "If you'll spare me, I'll help you."
So Manu spares the fish. He puts him in a fish bowl. The fish grew and
grew. It said to Manu, "There is a huge flood coming. You're going
to have to build a giant boat. Manu does as the fish says. Once the
boat is in danger of crashing and a huge fish with golden scales and
a golden horn appears. Manu lashes the boat to the horn and humanity
is saved. The fish reveals himself as Vishnu.

At one time, the
gods began to lose vigor and strength, and the Asuras began to gain
mastery. Vishnu tells the gods to work together with the Asuras. They
take a giant mountain and turn it over and place it in the cosmic ocean.
They take the hugest snake and wrap it round the mountain once. They
hold the ends of the snake and turn the mountain back and forth which
churns the ocean. But the mountain begins to bore into the earth. Vishnu
(2nd avatar) takes the form of a turtle, dives down and acts
as a pivot to protect the earth. From the foam of the ocean came Amrita
to keep the gods young. The snake opens its mouth and a gigantic amount
of poison comes out and is about to fall on the earth and destroy all
life. Shiva catches all the poison in his mouth and takes it out to
the universe and spews it out. Strong poison -- turned his throat blue.
(4th avatar) Lion-man, a man with a lion's head and claws. (5th
avatar) A demon named Bali performs austerities for centuries
until he's so strong he takes over the universe. He becomes a tyrant.
One day in Bali's court a dwarf appears who pleases Bali with humor
and the like. The dwarf says he would like as a favor to own a place
of his own. Bali asks how much. The dwarf says only as much as I can
cover in three steps. Bali grants the wish. The dwarf is Vishnu. He
grows so huge that in one step he covers the whole universe and says
to Bali, "Where shall I go now?" Bali is contrite in his loss.
He becomes ruler of the Underworld (there is a similar story in Polynesian
myth). (3rd avatar) a boar. (6th & 7th avatars) The
Kshatriya class had become too strong and were taking over. A being
called Parasurama (= Rama with the axe) appears and begins wiping
out the warrior class. He gets a blood frenzy up and is unstoppable.
Ramachandra appears (often called Rama). This is also
Vishnu. And he stopped Parasurama. Two separate incarnations at the
same time. Parasurama leaves.

Sita - Rama's
beloved. (The couple is very famous in Indian lore.) In a long poem,
Sita was abducted by a demon Ravana, King of Lanka (Sri Lanka). Rama
goes after her, blah blah blah. (8th avatar) Krishna ("Dark
One") When he was born, a demon knew he would present danger, but
only knew the name of his family clan. He sent soldiers to kill all
the infant sons (archetype: The Slaughter
of the Innocents). They miss him, of course. They always do. Krishna
escapes. He is a boy with blue skin. He grows up. As a teenager, he
has a series of very amorous adventures. He loves to go out in the fields
and have a nice time with girls herding cows (Krishna with the Cow Girls).
He used to "dance" with these young ladies. He once encountered
thirteen of them. They all wanted to "dance." So he cloned
himself into twelve others and they all "danced" in a circle.
He grows up and goes after the demon who tried to kill him. At the gate,
a mad elephant attacks him and he clubs it to death and then goes in
and does the same to the demon. He then marries his lover (equivalent
of the Sita figure). At one point, two gigantic clans prepare to go
to war against each other. One is led by Arjuna (Krishna was
Arjuna's cousin). The night before the first battle, Arjuna looks into
the valley of the armies and feels sad of the death that will occur.
His chariot-driver talks to him about whether he should go to battle
(the charioteer is Krishna). The Mahabhárata is a poem
which describes the entire war. The conversation between Krishna and
Arjuna is the Bhagavad Gita. Krishna sends Arjuna into war and
they win. One day, Krishna is out in the woods sitting beneath a tree
and an archer shoots an arrow not seeing Krishna. The arrow misses his
mark and hits Krishna in the heel and wounds him fatally (his one vulnerable
spot). Krishna forgives the archer, then dies and becomes Vishnu again.

The Story of
the 9th Avatar: Buddha - recent story. An obvious attempt
to subordinate Buddha to the Hindu gods. However the real 9th avatar
is to come. In the age of shallowness and materialism and brother cheating
brother, son killing father, Vishnu will be Kalki [(1) a great
white stallion, (2) Vishnu riding a white stallion].

Brahma - one day
= 4,320 million years. At the beginning of each cosmic day, Vishnu lies
asleep on the back of a thousand-headed cobra, floating in the cosmic
ocean. Immediately, a lotus grows from Vishnu's navel. From the lotus,
Brahma is born. Brahma creates the world and governs it. And at the
end of the day, Vishnu falls asleep and reabsorbs the entire universe
back into his body. 360 of those days form one year of Brahma. Vishnu
will live 100 of those years. Right now, Vishnu is 51. After the 100
years, Vishnu and Brahma will merge with the Imperial Absolute
- a life force. But a new Vishnu will appear and it will start all over
again.

allegories
- the use of symbolic or fictional figures to express truths or generalizations
about human existence and/or actual events in history

archetype
- characters, situations or events commonly representative of throughout
history and cultures, e.g., nagging mother-in-law, boastful but
cowardly soldier, the eternal triangle/love triangle, a young god destroying
the huge enemy of the other gods, poetic justice.

Some common archetypes:

The air personified
separates the earth from the sky.

The sky is male
and the earth is female.

The sum is superior
to the moon in power.

The
Evil Eye - an all-powerful weapon, the bearer of the eye need only
look upon his victim to inflict instantaneous death.

The
Curing of the Curse - (1) the victim can only be cured if the source
of the curse is known, (2) the victim can only be cured by the person
who lays the curse.

The
True Name (a very widespread archetype) - Everything in the universe
has a true name which is the essence of that thing. The name gives
power over the entity. Godparents give a child a true name. The name
by which a person is actually called is the "eke name" or
"also name" -> "nickname".

Pre-Creation
Chaos - The first major archetype: In the beginning there is nothing
but ocean or chaotic water or ice.

Enmity
Between the Farmer and the Herdsman

Bitter feud
between herdsman and farmer and the obvious favoritism for the herdsman.

Universal
Laws, for example:

Anyone who
eats and/or drinks in the Underworld may never leave

The
Law of the Host and Guest - the guest must arrive home as safely
as they arrived at the host's door [Macbeth's murder of Duncan,
a guest, was much more heinous than if he'd murdered a stranger]

The
Dying God Theme - Any fertility god is born in the spring, lives half
the year, then dies and goes to the Underworld until it is spring
again. The Greeks had three separate versions of this story. Persephone,
Adonis & Aphrodite, and Dionysus (festivals in recognition of
his death and rebirth -> drama for the festivals. Dramas for the
spring were comedy, and those for the autumn were tragedy.)

The
Triple Goddess -

three different
goddesses combined into one who takes the name of one and the powers
of all three

a single goddess
split into three variant forms of the original goddess's name with
similar or identical powers

The
universe is created from the dead carcass of a great primeval being.

The
Lying Messenger/The Perverted Message - The theme is our loss of a
chance at immortality. Typically the messenger is sent to tell humans
how to get immortality for himself. The messenger is almost always
a snake. It parallels the Garden of Eden story.

The
Slaughter of the Innocents - all the young children of a given age
and description are murdered to prevent the rise to power of a prophesied
leader.

canon
- official sacred book of a culture (e.g., the Bible, the Koran, etc.)

courtly
love - an illicit affair between a noble, courteous, gentile bachelor
knight and a married lady. It is never consummated (on paper). It should
be at a distance. The man is slave to a cold hearted woman who loves
him in secret.

demon
- a being halfway between the gods and humans, sometimes minor gods

demi-god
- offspring of the gods

dualism
- a belief that there is only good and evil in the universe and that
they are constantly at odds

epithet
- a label given to a god or person which reflects certain chracteristics

eponymous
ancestor - an ancestor created/invented to explain the existence of
something current

folklore
- usually about people or animals -- always in a state of flux (authors
are anonymous)

god
- An immortal? with supernatural powers? Their powers are always connected
to their aspects. They are associated with nature. All have some virtues
and weaknesses as humans do but they are greatly exaggerated and limited
to several specifics.

Law
of Parsimony (stinginess): When faced with two or more possible interpretations,
you must select the one which makes the least amount of assumption.

legend
- exaggeration of a story of some REAL person; myth - primarily deals
with the gods

myth
- a traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to
unfold part of the world view of a people, or explain a practice, belief,
or natural phenomenon. (What you believe is religion; what he believes
is myth.)

mythology
- Humans interacting with gods, stories dealing with such interaction.
A series of illustrations for religious doctrine -- explanations of
natural phenomena which could not otherwise be explained (mythology
and folklore)